Tyson Fury is still sporting a nasty black eye several days after his fight with Francis Ngannou. The WBC heavyweight champion won a controversial split decision over the Cameroonian-French MMA star in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Saturday night.
Many pundits felt Ngannou had done enough to get his hand raised, however, two out of the three judges awarded the victory to the Gypsy King. Shortly after arriving back in the UK following his crossover clash, Fury was snapped leaving his house in Morecambe Bay alongside his wife Paris in a stunning Rolls-Royce Phantom Series II worth over £300,000.
They were also snapped for the first time together with their new baby and seventh child, Prince Rico Paris Fury. Ngannou opened up as a 7/1 underdog with the bookies heading into his fight with Fury but exceeded all expectations by giving the undefeated professional boxer one of the toughest fights of his career.
The Mancunian was down in the third and badly hurt in the eighth as he limped over the finish line in the Middle East. Despite the vast gulf in experience Fury visibly struggled to deal with Ngannou’s marauding physical presence.
The punch stats reveal Ngannou outlanded Fury 37 to 32 in power shots while the Brit got the better of his foe in terms of total punches landed with 71 to the former UFC heavyweight champion’s 59. Spectators, like the judges, were split on who they felt should have been awarded the victory but most sided with the boxing novice.
“He’s [Fury] been very lucky there. Let’s put it into perspective, very lucky indeed. I don’t agree with that, I think we all feel Ngannou won it,” said Richie Woodhall on commentary.
In a similar vein, Carl Frampton said: “I thought Ngannou won that fight. At times I could not believe what I was watching. Francis came into his first boxing match and was fighting the heavyweight champion of the world, how was he supposed to win? But in my eyes, he won. He boxed beautifully at times.”
Meanwhile, Paulie Malignaggi sided with Fury when dissecting the fight on his YouTube channel. “At the end of the day, Ngannou wasn’t going to be a guy that was going to be able to stay consistent over the course of ten rounds,” he said.
“By the end of the fight, Fury won the fight, it was a split decision, was it more competitive than we thought? Yeah, absolutely. Does Ngannou deserve a lot of credit and does Tyson Fury deserve the criticism? Absolutely. This was a class performance by Francis Ngannou regardless, but I don’t think that he won enough rounds and at the end of the day I had it about 96-93.
“I don’t think he won more than three rounds, maybe four rounds if you are a little bit generous, but he won the bigger rounds and Fury won all the quiet rounds, but you still have to score the quiet rounds.”
