We’ve never seen him fight a boxer under boxing rules so he’s an unknown quantity. But we have seen other far less decorated MMA heavyweights make a transition to boxing and immediately have some success:
2-0 Tuivasa (MMA record 15-6, MMA/combat sports debut 21 months prior) vs 3-0 Nasio (stopped in 1 by Tuivasa, with the only other man to stop Nasio in 16 pro fights being 10-0 McKean in 6)
https://boxrec.com/en/box-pro/640110
0-2-1 Hunt (MMA record 13-14-1, 48 years old) vs 9-0 Williams (beat Botha, Welliver)
2-0 Hardy (MMA record 7-5, 6.5 years striking experience) vs 14-1 Neely (only stopped by Hardy across six TCL one rounders). As of October 20th 2023, UFC reject Hardy is ranked as the 94th (out of 1416) best active heavyweight boxer in the world by Boxrec
26-0 Maldonado (MMA record 28-17) had been KO’d in 35 seconds by Miocic in MMA but he went on to go the 10 round distance with Rivas and Takam in boxing. By contrast, Miocic wasn’t able to seriously hurt, drop or stop Ngannou over two fights and 36 minutes in 4oz gloves, despite landing 82 strikes (UFC stats)
Ngannou (MMA record 17-3, lineal UFC heavyweight champion, Fury an 87.5% favourite) has 14-15 years striking experience (boxing and MMA, sparred Joyce and Takam, trained by Tyson) and he’s a far more dangerous MMA striker than Tuivasa, Hunt or Hardy
I suspect that Ngannou is more dangerous to higher level boxers than contenders without much power, belief or great pointfighting ability, such as Takam or Pulev.
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