Although boxing had great fights all throughout 2023, it wasn’t a good year for Tyson Fury. He’s been out of the ring for months now, as he last fought against Derek Chisora back in December 2022. Since then, every attempt to finalize a fight for him has been in vain. The negotiations fell apart with Oleksandr Usyk, and the same thing happened with Anthony Joshua as well. At first, Fury planned to fight against him, but the fighters couldn’t find a middle ground, and Joshua further took the lane to go against Deontay Wilder at the beginning of 2024.
Besides this, Fury’s team also tried reaching out to Andy Ruiz Jr. and Zhilei Zhang, but even that approach turned out to be a failure. Well, in the end, Fury booked a crossover fight against the former UFC fighter, Francis Ngannou. So, even after making several offers to other fighters, Fury’s promoter revealed that nobody did the same for ‘The Gypsy King’.
Frank Warren talks about the struggles that his boxer had to face
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Since his last bout, Fury has been having difficulty getting a challenge inside the boxing ring. Well, in a recent conversation with William Hill, Frank Warren has come forward to explain the major problem their team had to face in booking a fight for the WBC Heavyweight champion.
He stated that Tyson Fury is the only fighter this year who has been rejected by every opponent they’ve tried to finalize a fight with, as nobody was ready for a real challenge. Warren also added, “We made offers; that’s a fact, but there’s not been one offer to Tyson Fury this year.” He mentioned that once or twice they’ve reached the point of finalization too, where they booked Wembley Stadium three times against different opponents, but every bout fell apart at the last moment. About Joshua, Warren, has also claimed that he’s “terrified of counters“.
But every time, there was a reason for the fight to be canceled. Furthermore, Fury has been trying to get every potential fighter to fight against him. Well, according to a potential Fury opponent, Zhang had a different perspective on Fury choosing to take on Ngannou.
Zhilei Zhang talks about Tyson Fury’s struggle to find an opponent
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Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou signed a deal to blow punches against each other on October 28 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. But Zhilei Zhang has slammed the Manchurian for choosing an easy fighter when he had so many great fights lined up for him. According to The Telegraph, Zhang said, “Tyson Fury avoided Joshua; he avoided Usyk. He chose to fight somebody who has never been in the ring before.”
Zhang considers Ngannou an amateur who has just started to turn into a professional boxer. He acknowledged the feats he had achieved in the Octagon and how he’s the UFC champion, but simultaneously, Zhang believes that it’s totally a different story inside the boxing ring. For that reason, he believes that Fury is a “disgrace” to the sport of boxing and should really be ashamed of himself.
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So, one said that Fury didn’t have any opponents because nobody wanted to fight him. While another said that Fury was the one who dodged great opponents. Well, it can’t be said for sure whose statement is the accurate one, but it’s for sure that Fury-Ngannou, despite everything, may turn out to be the biggest crossover event in combat sports history. What are your thoughts about this fight? Let us know in the comments section.
Watch This Story: Everything We Know So Far About Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou