Comments Thread For: Francis Ngannou Blames Anthony Joshua Defeat On Tiredness

[takenotes]

I am not a fan of boxing in Saudi. That card started at 10am ET for me and did not end until 8pm ET. That is absolutely ridiculous. It's bad enough watching a fight in UK which is 5 hours ahead of me or even when a fight is in Vegas and the main event does not come on till midnight/1am. But I rather stay up till 1-2 am to watch the fight then during the day on a weekday.

[Joseph]

The very second Ngannou was knocked down in the first round, I knew it wouldn't make it to the third.

[Hands of Stone]

Here I was rooting for this guy 'cos of his back story and now he's staring to turn me off. Of course, everybody was tired at that wee hours of the morning including Joshua, including Parker, Zhang, the Referee etc., hell I was tired watching it but you still got a job to do for which you need prepare, recuperate and rest enough to do the job. Sounds like he's angling for a rematch so he can get another payday. If Fury had done what AJ did in his fight, he would have saved us from this farce of fight. Please go away and back to MMA where you belong. Your time in boxing is up.

[eco1]

If a midget hits me like that I would also be tired for at least 10 minutes.

[SUBZER0ED]

Must have been tired, The way he Slept after that AJ right hand. Poor lad.

[Oregonian]

I can accept that he was tired, or tense, or both. But it is still a legitimate loss. He can prove different if they rematch, which could potentially be another high-salaries fight, but I doubt it will happen.

———-
Hatton could have also proved different if PAC gave him a rematch. Hatton also asked for a rematch and clearly Floyd ducked him because the outcome would have been different.
At this point, Wilder should ask for a fourth fight with Fury because he can prove different.

[CubanGuyNYC]

I read something recently, a quote from Evander Holyfield. He said that the night before the first Tyson fight, he slept like two hours. We all know how that turned out. Fighters perform under all kinds of conditions. Most fans don’t think about the fact that they’re often not at 100% capacity. They’re human. Guys come into the ring with the flu, headaches, injuries, personal problems at home — all kinds of stuff. I don’t disbelieve Francis — in fact, he’s probably telling the truth — but so what? It’s doubtful he could ever get past the fifth with AJ, even on his best day. I think we all saw that pretty clearly.

[SUBZER0ED]

It's funny how some of these guys make excuses for losing, then try to clean it up with a " I'm not taking anything away from the other guy" or "I'm not making any excuses" line.

[P to the J]

Come on bro, you could be fresh as hell, no amount of energy’s mopping up those technical flaws you got

[Willow The Wisp]

Respect to Francis Ngannou!
Foreman, Wilder, now him with the lame excuses. Maybe it's a "I've got the magic power, and can't be beat" thing.
(It is).

He's a great fighter by MMA standards. Throw out the weight divisions, probably the greatest. Fedor, Nog, B.J., Hughes, Hendo; they fought in a more undeveloped era.

Sure, Ngannou was always nothing but a boxer with good takedown defense; and that was enough in MMA.

But for top 10, full-time boxing?
Not enough.

THAT was why he lost to Joshua.
That and JUST that.

Fury came to play, and their fight looked like Muhammad Ali playing with Lyle Alzado or Buddy Wolfe.
But Fury did just enough to win.

THAT is why he lost to Fury.

And under it all, there is something called CLASS when you step up and into the big money pay bracket - In any industry.

Before ability and commitment are even a question, the first thing an athlete must do before deciding to embark on a career in professional fighting; is to decide if they feel that they are a good enough NATURAL pupil to box, because that's where nearly ALL the money is for a fighter, and not surprisingly the largest pool of talent. 2024 - 24,687 active boxers, 7,766 MMA pros, 5,133 Kickboxers. Thats a fact. IF they have chosen MMA OR Kickboxing instead from the outset, it is often because they initially lacked the Confidence in themselves to swim in the deep end of the combat sports pool, where the big bucks can be earned.

It's more about choosing with confidence than it is about a fighter's core background.
Why?
In MMA, Even the greatest grapplers Must learn to box some, and strikers Must learn to grapple some, and fighters of divergent base backgrounds invariably will "meet in the middle". Threrefore; it is a given that all fighters are in essence, "cut from the same cloth". A good boxer, Ngannou never needed much beyond defending the takedown and checking the kick in MMA.
But in the place where the best "naturals" live year round, we should've known; it was going to get rough the first time he met an elite man who didn't come to play with him.

And it did.