How Francis Ngannou

~ Killed the King ~

All interest had waned from the MMA vs boxing carnival and then Francis Ngannou came out and made a fool of the world heavyweight champion over ten rounds under Queensberry rules. Worse yet, it was not just a John Tate or Charles Martin type heavyweight champ—someone to whom a belt had simply fallen in the shuffle—but perhaps the most talented heavyweight of this generation, Tyson Fury.

A shaky split decision was still awarded to Fury—giving Ngannou the full boxing experience in his first professional fight—but it could not expunge the thirty minutes of fighting fans had just witnessed. Saudi Arabia’s “Battle of the Baddest”, the most bombastic show in boxing and spoken about as if it were a second Rumble in the Jungle, went from all spectacle to “the press conference has been cancelled and there will be no further questions” in an instant. Even Oleksandr Usyk—the man who has engaged in a war of words with Fury for the past year and who was tentatively scheduled to fight Fury in the same place in December—jogged out of the arena awkwardly brushing off questions from ringside reporters.

At this point, Francis Ngannou’s combat sports career and life have been so remarkable that it might simply be the case that he willed this result into being, but for those of us trying to process the bout from a fighting perspective there are a few factors to look at. Today we will mull over Ngannou’s unexpected success in pure boxing, the unique challenges he posed to Tyson Fury’s usual anti-puncher tactics, and Fury’s jab and lack thereof.   

Ngannou’s Boxing Success

Before we delve into the “MMA in a boxing match” stuff we must note the success of Ngannou in a pure boxing contest. This is a man who works at a far lower rate of activity in MMA, over a shorter contest, and does big hitting rather than frequent hitting. Hell, we’re only a few years removed from him crossing his feet every time he advances. Everyone with a working brain and access to fight film reckoned Ngannou’s best chance was to catch Fury with a big one early. Not only did he do that and take a 10-8 round off the heavyweight champ, he outpointed him in a number of rounds as well.

Ngannou’s double jab was something of a revelation. Every week MMA fighters run forward and back across the cage: failing to use the double jab to draw reactions, failing to use the double jab to eat up space. Francis Ngannou was expected to come out swinging haymakers and instead he probed at Tyson Fury with double jabs and forced the champion to show his intentions without opening up for counters. Through the first two rounds Ngannou moved Fury to the ropes without offering much, and digging the odd right straight or hook to the body as he did so.

Figure 1 shows Ngannou double jabbing, head and body, in a continued effort to keep Fury near the ropes. Fury counters the body jab with a slapping left hook to the head.

Fig. 1

In the next round, Ngannou surprised Fury by scoring the exact same counter and splitting Fury’s forehead open.

Fig. 2

Another great look was Ngannou’s use of the southpaw stance. Tyson Fury has used his own southpaw stance to confuse some of the traditional boxers he has met, famously fighting out of it for most of his second fight with Derek Chisora. Ngannou does not have a lot of looks from southpaw, but it only seemed to expose how limited Fury’s game is from his switched position as well. When Ngannou stood orthodox and Fury stood southpaw, all Fury could do was throw flapping left hands and try to tie up. When both stood southpaw, Ngannou was able to land left straights even better than Fury, and his seemed considerably more damaging. If Fury has indeed been overlooking Ngannou and training for Usyk—a full time southpaw and the best heavyweight southpaw going—that doesn’t bode well.

The expectation was that Ngannou would slow down over the fight because he always has in MMA, and he isn’t forced to throw punches for ten full rounds in that sport. Ngannou seemed prepared for this and, after his sensational third round, he loosened up and threw with even more confidence. Through the latter half of the fight he seemed to slow but not any more than Fury. That might have been down to a lack of preparation or seriousness from Fury, but it is important to note that Fury was denied his usual breaks in the clinch and that Ngannou kept the fight going and the punches flying until the final bell.

Tyson Fury vs Punchers

It might be easy to overvalue the role of the clinch and Ngannou’s command of it. But to overlook it entirely would be negligent and show a lack of understanding about how Tyson Fury operates.

There are skills in defensive boxing that take years of training to master: the slips and rolls and pulls that Tyson Fury uses routinely. But after all of those even the greatest defensive savants in boxing realize that a clinch is always safer, and more often than not it is easier.

We have been banging on this drum since Floyd Mayweather’s best days but there is still an enormous knowledge gap in boxing around the clinch. There are the fighters who know how to use it and escape it, and there are those who simply fall victim to it. Fighters as good as Manny Pacquiao get tied up and look completely clueless or simply accept it. Then less accomplished fighters like Marcos Maidana can give Floyd Mayweather a terrible scrap just by having a little knowledge and refusing to rest when the opponent loosely hugs him.

When you see a good clincher in boxing it almost seems unfair. Floyd Mayweather could clinch his opponent when he wanted to, but they could not clinch him without walking onto a frame, or the top of his head, and a counterpunch.

Fig. 3

Have a look at Tyson Fury’s second and third fights with Deontay Wilder. Often when Fury wanted to clinch he would duck in deep for Wilder’s hips and then stand up into a tie up.

Fig. 4

When Wilder ducked in, Fury leaned on the back of his neck until Wilder went to the floor or the ref stepped in. In a sport where fighters absorb over a hundred punches a fight, it is often overlooked just how exhausting it can be to get leaned on.

Fig. 5

Fury was diving for tie ups from round two of this bout. If he did underestimate Francis Ngannou and planned to have rests and run down the clock in these clinches, he was sorely disappointed. Figure 6 shows Fury against the ropes, performing a deep slip past Ngannou’s lead shoulder and ducking in. As Fury comes up into the clinch, Ngannou keeps his forearms in front of Fury’s shoulders (c). From here he was able to break away and keep the match flowing, rather than letting Fury rest for a few seconds, and waste a few seconds more as the ref got between them.

Fig. 6

By keeping his forearms in front of Fury’s collar bones and his elbows away from his body, Ngannou could keep Fury from getting chest to chest, and was even able to hammer in some uppercuts from here throughout the fight. In the fourth round he was even able to throw Fury by him and pursue him into the corner when all Fury wanted to do was have a rest.

When Fury got underneath Ngannou’s elbows and came in low, Ngannou made sure Fury stayed doubled over.

Fig. 7

Those who saw the second Stipe Miocic fight will recall that a lot of Miocic’s trouble started after he attempted a takedown and Ngannou got over the back of Miocic’s head, sprawled, and made the MMA great carry his weight.

Figure 8 shows Ngannou dropping his weight on the back of Fury’s neck until he can step back and break free.

Fig. 8

And when Ngannou’s own head dropped low and Fury tried to lean on him, Ngannou immediately fought for his posture and looked across Fury’s back. Keeping himself out of a stooped over posture instead of being leaned on for ten rounds was critical in Ngannou making it the distance.

Fig. 9

Because the clinch signifies nothing happening, boxing fans have almost a blindness to the position. Unless a fighter is clinching to comical excess they do not even realize it is playing a role in killing the clock and limiting exchanges. Through the whole fight but in rounds two and three especially, Fury was attempting to “punch and clutch”. To throw a strike, then immediately close to the clinch to keep the exchange at 1-0. Wladimir Klitschko was so good at this pot shotting and refusing to let his opponent have a turn that fans coined the term “jab and grab.” Figure 10 shows Fury using punch-and-clutch to score on and then immediately smother Deontay Wilder.

Fig. 10

Figure 11 shows a great example of Ngannou using an “MMA technique” to continue boxing in a boxing match. Fury is fighting southpaw, throws an overhand left (b) (c), and closes to clinch. Ngannou keeps his elbow and wrist inside of Fury’s left biceps in a biceps tie (d). As the two turn around, Ngannou breaks from Fury’s clinch with a short right hand across the jaw.

Fig. 11

It is illegal to punch when a referee calls “break”, but a punch delivered on an organic break is called a “sneaker” and fighters like Andy Ruiz are still doing incredible work with it in the boxing ring (Figure 12). In MMA, the elbow off the pummel is a classic that harkens back to Randy Couture and Mike Perry’s knockout of Jake Ellenberger is a great example.

Fig. 12

And of course much attention has been given to the single cross forearm frame that Ngannou used in the eighth round. This is a deceptively difficult position to punch from, because the fighter must push his opponent’s head away with his left forearm and not let the head drop inside the path of his right hand when he throws it. We discussed how Badr Hari obliterated kickboxers with this in Badr Hari - Advanced Striking 2.0, but some specialists from the boxing world are George Foreman and Floyd Mayweather.

Fig. 13

Ngannou’s most touted attribute coming into this fight was his power punching. Power is not an earth-shattering revelation in heavyweight boxing and Tyson Fury has met a lot of scary punchers. Maybe the story about Francis Ngannou having the hardest punch ever measured by the UFC Performance Institute was more than a marketing ploy, but it is hard to imagine Ngannou’s punch being worlds apart from the heat with which Deontay Wilder and Dillian Whyte throw.

The difference of course was that Fury could always step in and tie those men up.

Fig. 14

In the second and third Wilder fights, Fury spent the early going smothering Wilder, and then when Wilder began accepting the clinches Fury would break free and punch. In those Wilder fights he was able to do infighting that didn’t exist in this fight because he could not reliably control and smother Ngannou on the inside if things got hairy.

Fig. 15

Fury’s Jab and Lack Thereof

This brings us to the crux of Fury’s trouble in this fight. Without being able to work comfortably on the inside, Fury was down to a clean, outside boxing game. In spite of Francis Ngannou’s brilliant work in this fight, he has not completely reinvented himself as a smooth boxing technician. He still overreacted to Fury’s shoulder feints and reached out two feet in front of himself to parry. Figure 16 shows one of many such instances in this fight.

Fig. 16

One way Fury tried to exploit this was with a left hook around the side. Fury’s left hook is far from a money punch, more a reaching slap that lines up his right straight—his real hurting shot. Figure 17 shows the set up that Fury leaned on throughout the fight.

Fury shoulder feints (b) and Ngannou reacts. Fury slaps a left hook around the side (c) and shoots the right straight down the middle (d), (e). Ngannou swings back his constant counter left hook (f), (g).

Fig. 17

While he may not be the slickest boxer in the world, Ngannou does have an honesty about him. He swings whole heartedly on the counter for almost everything his opponent lands. In MMA that worked against him in his first bout with Stipe Miocic, who could shoulder feint and draw a huge counter swing almost every time. It did not take long for Ngannou to look as if he was drowning.

In recent years Ngannou has loosened his death grip on the trigger. Now it takes a bit more than a shoulder feint to get him swinging at air, but every time Fury punched, Ngannou swung back hard.

Because Fury could not close to the clinch off the right hand, and did not feel comfortable hanging around in the pocket, he was reduced to pulling after his right straight. In Figure 17 above, that worked, but Figure 18 shows the knockdown. Fury had worked southpaw for a couple of minutes, clinching excessively, and then as the referee broke them he switched to orthodox and tried to use the left hook to right straight twice to switch up the pace on Ngannou and catch him resting. Instead, he hung around too late as the Ngannou left hook came back and was sent to the mat.

Fig. 18

Most knowledgeable pundits could tell you by the fourth round that Tyson Fury was having trouble “getting his jab going.” That makes it sound like a mechanical issue but much of the problem was just discomfort getting close enough to do his usual jabbing work. There were some nice instances, such as Figure 19 where Fury jabs, pulls from Ngannou’s left hook, and jabs again.

Fig. 19

Or Figure 20 where Fury jabs off the hook—the reverse of the norm and a Willie Pep specialty.

Fig. 20

But for the most part this fight only served to make Tyson Fury look limited. This is a fighter who is touted as classy on the outside, skilled on the inside, capable of boxing and slugging, he even switches stance! And yet in this fight he was reduced to shoulder feinting, the left hook to right straight, and an overhand to clinch from southpaw. Even against a fighter whose gas tank was always going to be the deciding factor of the fight, Fury refused to go to the body. It was Ngannou, the diligent student of boxing, who shot the odd right straight or hook to the body of the heavyweight champion instead.

This fight was an aligning of the stars. Ngannou had to leave the UFC at the right time. Fury had to be the kind of heavyweight champion who loves two or three soft fights for every real one. Saudi Arabia had to be offering huge money for something that seemed just plain daft. Even with every MMA fighter in the UFC now calling for a boxing cross-over, there is unlikely to be one like this.

Fury will now likely move onto the Usyk fight—an insult that fight fans can stomach in return for finally unifying the belts. Ngannou? PFL are supposed to be bringing him in to fight MMA, but the boxing world is his oyster. While he was impressive in this bout, less lazy heavyweights are surely looking at him and salivating. The Wilder fight is one that fans like for the appeal of two big punchers smashing into each other, but Anthony Joshua might hope to get some hype behind his brand by picking Ngannou next. Someone like Andy Ruiz—with his iron head and ludicrous work rate—seems like someone who could really give Ngannou a hard time in the squared circle.

Last weekend seemed devoid of meaningful fights and Ngannou versus Fury seemed like a silly distraction. But such is the magic of Francis Ngannou that it turned into one of the most important fighting moments of 2023.

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While you’re here, check out How Islam Makhachev Defended the Crown, or How Sean Strickland Killed the King