Heavyweight title hopeful, Zhilei Zhang, has blasted Tyson Fury for his poor performance against former UFC champion Francis Ngannou.
Ahead of the clash, the WBC Champion was expected to put on a boxing clinic against the debutant, yet instead, he was involved in a bruising, gruelling affair and was fortunate in the eyes of some fans to walk away with the split-decision win, especially having suffering a knockdown in round three.
In an interview with Boxing News, ‘Big Bang’ Zhang said the Cameroonian did enough to hand Fury his first professional defeat and shared his thoughts on the Brit’s display, which he labelled as shameful to the sport of boxing.
“To be honest with you, I had Francis Ngannou [winning the fight], if you count the knockdown as a 10-8 round. Throughout the whole fight, he was landing more power shots and he was being more aggressive. Fury didn’t throw a lot of punches for some reason, he was holding himself back and controlling the distance with his jab, so I think that it is a night of shame for the sport of professional boxing.”
“It might have been an underestimation of his opponent, maybe a lack of training, we don’t know. Tyson is the only guy who knows what happened. People like me are training so hard for boxing every day and we want to deliver professional performances and what Fury did last night was bad for the sport.”
Zhang currently holds the position as the WBO mandatory challenger, which is expected to be called after the IBF’s mandatory, Filip Hrgovic, gets his shot at the world title. With a delay to the undisputed showdown between Fury and Oleksandr Usyk being confirmed, the Chinese heavyweight looks like he’ll have to wait a little longer for his chance at gold.