Francis Ngannou felt he neutralized Tyson Fury for large stretches of their high-profile showdown by fighting as a lefty.
The former UFC champion failed to pull off the upset over WBC titlist Tyson Fury in their 10-round heavyweight bout on Saturday night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but he shocked many viewers by being mostly competitive and even dropping Fury in the third round. In the end, the judges narrowly awarded Fury a split decision.
The fight was Ngannou’s professional boxing debut.
In an interview the next day, Ngannou, an orthodox fighter, credited his success in part due to the times he switched to the southpaw stance, something Fury also did in the fight.
“I was very aware of his speed and everything,” Ngannou said in a video interview uploaded on his personal YouTube channel. “Kept my guard up. I do respect his skills, I respect his power, I respect his everything, but I wanted to impose myself and I kept imposing my style.
“One thing that happened, southpaw. I switched southpaw. The first time as soon as I switched, he did the same. But he wasn’t that confident. His jab from the southpaw wasn’t [proficient] at all. It was easy for me to slip and move left and get this angle, where he was very exposed. So, I realized that and I was using that a lot. At some point in the fight, even when I wanted him to give him space, I was switching to southpaw but not to [stand and fight].
“My southpaw [stance] was making him work, thinking, like, ‘what do I do? I’m more [proficient] in southpaw than him. My left hand go faster and good. I didn’t land because, I think, my footwork wasn’t sharp at that moment. I wasn’t bringing up back feet with me, so my back hand was coming up short. But it was fast and that’s how I was able to get [into] the fight.”
Ngannou has called for a rematch with Fury, but Fury will now move on to an undisputed heavyweight championship against Oleksandr Usyk in Saudi Arabia. While Dec. 23 has been floated as the date for that matchup, it is not clear when that fight will actually take place, as Fury and his promoter, Frank Warren, have indicated that he needs more time to heal up.
Sean Nam is the author of Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing.