Comments Thread For: What makes for a KO of the Year? The 2024 frontrunners may offer some insight

[Willow The Wisp]

Cheers man, thanks.

You have to ask yourself the question, go through all the so called best knockouts of the year 'Then pose yourself the question'.

If those individual fights, did not play out like they did 'How would those performances then effect boxing and reality'.

If Francis Ngannou would of beaten Anthony Joshua by knockout 'What effect universally would of that performance had on boxing'.

Note: When you go through all the fights, mentioned in this thread 'And analyse the fights from that perspective. It becomes abundantly clear that Anthony Joshua's win and knockout against Francis Ngannou was the most significant and best knockout of the year by many miles'.

It is like that movie Back To The Future 1985, we don't know how individual moments in time 'Effect the trajectory of reality. But we do know that all moments and events, have a effect some appear greater than others in terms of impact'.

Anthony Joshua not only had to beat Francis Ngannou, he had to knock him out 'It is a underrated performance, there was big pressure upon Anthony Joshua. Joshua could of easily just attempted to out box Ngannou. I stated before the fight, that Anthony Joshua stylistically and tactically would most likely have a easier time just out pointing Francis Ngannnou more than Tyson Fury 'Because Fury may well be a great boxer, but fundamentally and innately he is a extremely clumsy fighter and was always at some point going to give a fighter like Ngannou a opportunity to whack him good'.

Anthony Joshua on March 8th 2024, fought Francis Ngannou in a manner which his critics believed was not possible 'Joshua really stepped up defended boxing, and produced a underrated great performance. Francis Ngannou a combat sports fighter, who was being built up as being invulnerable to physical attacks was completely obliterated'.

To conclude: I personally think Francis Ngannou is and was a better boxer than many people expected, and claimed after his fight with Tyson Fury 'Fury was in condition, and Ngannou was able to complete with him'.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Anthony Joshua's win and knockout against Francis Ngannou is the most significant and best knockout of the year etc.

Great post.
I knew two things going into Joshua - Ngannou.
1. That Francis Ngannou was an experienced and proficient boxer. He began his journey in boxing, and boxing was the ONLY thing he ever did exceptionally well during his peerless MMA career. His takedown offense & defense, wrestling, kickboxing and submission grappling skills were just enough to allow him to box without m-o-l-e-s-tation. Those add on skills could be absorbed by any decent, hard hitting boxer, and render a similar result in the cage.
I posted these truths here, before the fight.

2. That if flaky Fury had prepared just a little for a decent, experienced boxer such as Ngannou, he would have overwhelmed the slower Ngannou; and, with Joshua taking the same opponent seriously, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. I'd posted those truths as well.


100% - Bragging rights were on the line in that fight, and the Boxing purists be dammed, the fight mattered a lot!

History is full of Style vs. Style, Sport vs. Sport matches, dating back to Greek Pankration, Chinese Lei Tai and Euopean/Japanese Merikan style matches; but after weeding out all the worked fights, the used up fighters, has-beens and never-were contestants, and the wonky rules contests, only a few are left that told us anything about how codified styles would interact in full-contact confrontations.

Joshua vs Ngannou is on that short list because it uniquely featured two champion level fighters at the height of their powers, where the MMA representative was not taken out of his natural element by being restricted to the Marques of Queensbury rules, both men free to do everything that they were famous for.

That was surely more important that the other knockout highlights listed.
No question about it.

And the embarrassing (to boxing) Fury - Ngannou prelude made it all the more special.
Had Francis planted one on Joshua and he couldn't recover, every scrapper in MMA who could punch a lick would be thinking they could make it in the "major leagues" of combat sports.