Thanks to his new lucrative deal with Professional Fighters League (PFL), former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UF)C Heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou, has the opportunity to cross over into boxing to test his skills in the “sweet science.”
“The Predator” has been very open about his quest to score big-money fights against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, but says he wouldn’t be opposed to a warmup fight to get his feet wet in the boxing world, first.
According to longtime UFC veteran, Matt Brown, taking that route would be a huge mistake because a loss could derail his chances to score the bag in his first boxing match.
“He needs to go for the big payday,” Brown explained on The Fighter vs. The Writer (via MMA Fighting)“It sounds like he wants to be a serious professional boxer maybe, if he’s talking about doing a warmup fight to get into it. I guess that’s a different path but now you’re taking a risk. Maybe you’re not that good. You don’t know.” he added.
“You haven’t f****** boxed, bro. You weren’t in the Olympics. You didn’t do an amateur career. You don’t f****** know. When you don’t know, go for the payday. Go for the f****** payday. What are we doing here? Quit f******* around here. Get the payday and be done with it.”
While Dana White and Jon Jones are trying their best to lure Tyson Fury away from Ngannou, Anthony Joshua has also distanced himself from a potential boxing match against “The Predator.” That’s because the former Heavyweight champion of the world isn’t interested in “gimmick” fights.
But should that fight come to fruition down the road, Brown says people shouldn’t be too quick to discount Ngannou’s chances against a boxer who has shown to have a suspect chin.
“He probably has a better chance against [Anthony] Joshua than I think people give him credit for,” Brown said. “I think Joshua is 10 times a better boxer, he has the experience [but] he’s a little chinny. He does not like getting hit. That is his flaw that he’s dealt with for a long time.
“He does not like getting hit, and if Francis actually shows him that power, even touches his gloves hard, Joshua might start cowering down a little bit. It probably comes across like I’m putting him down or something. He’s absolutely an amazing fighter, and I have the utmost respect for him, but that’s certainly the knock on him is his chin and his ability to take shots.”
In Joshua’s defense, he has only been knocked out once in his decade-long career, losing to Andy Ruiz Jr. via technical knockout (TKO) in June 2019 (video replay here). While Ngannou does possess devastating power, he has yet to prove he has the skill-set to be competitive in a full-on boxing match.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
