If Francis Ngannou had gotten knocked out in the second or third round by a flabby, out-of-shape Tyson Fury on Saturday at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that almost certainly might have been it for the hybrid fights between MMA fighters and boxers.
But Ngannou, the former UFC heavyweight champion, not only didn't get knocked out, he knocked Fury down and, arguably, won the fight.
The legendary boxing Hall of Famer Roberto Duran, one of the 10 greatest fighters in the sport's long history, said he thought Ngannou won. In doing an interview in English, his second language, he wasn't clear. And so he turned to a bilingual friend near him and told him to make clear to the interviewer in no uncertain terms he felt Ngannou had won the fight.
They seemed to have been losing steam prior to Ngannou's performance. Each of social media star Jake Paul's boxing matches against MMA fighters sold worse than the prior one until he fought ex-UFC bad boy Nate Diaz. Then the pay-per-view sales in the U.S. had aMMA fans are primarily the ones buying these fights, and they supported Diaz, who had been hugely popular in the UFC.
It's hard to see how a Jake Paul fight, even against a popular UFC fighter like Masvidal, if that's who it turns out to be, will sell. And that's assuming that the Fury-Oleksandr Usyk fight for the undisputed heavyweight title doesn't go on Dec. 23 as was originally planned. Fury promoter Frank Warren said it will be pushed back to early 2024, but if the Saudis want it Dec. 23, chances are it will be Dec. 23. And that, too, will put huge pressure on the Paul fight.
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