Former four division world champion Roy Jones Jr. was ringside, in Saudi Arabia last Saturday, to witness the heavyweight clash between WBC world champion Tyson Fury and MMA veteran Francis Ngnanou.
Fury,, who many believe was underprepared, barely pulled out a ten round split decision win over Ngannou, who was making his professional debut in boxing.
The scores were 95-94 and 96-93 for Fury, with a third judge handing in a tally of 95-94 for Ngannou.
“Tyson Fury prepared as though he was fighting an MMA fighter who has no boxing experience,” Jones said to SecondsOut.
“He didn’t come out there prepared to fight an Usyk-type guy or a guy like Ngannou who had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Tyson had everything to lose and nothing to gain, and guess what happened? He lost ’cause even in winning, he lost ’cause he didn’t look good. He had everything to lose, nothing in it to gain.”
Fury was dropped in the third round, sustained a cut from an uppercut and had issues with Ngannou’s style for most of the contest.
Because of his performance, many observers believe Fury is now the underdog in a slated unification with WBO, IBF, IBO, WBA champion Oleskandr Usyk.
Jones believes some fans are getting way too ahead of themselves and he doesn’t feel that Fury’s performance against Ngannou is a reflection of what he will do against Usyk.
“His head is where it always is,” Jones said. “When he has a bad performance, he comes back and makes up for it with a beautiful performance. So, if they think that means that Usyk’s gonna beat him, they got another thought coming. That don’t mean that. He didn’t prepare like he was preparing to fight Oleksandr Usyk. He prepared like he was fighting a guy who has no experience in boxing.”