{"id":870284,"date":"2026-08-27T13:24:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T13:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/870284\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T13:24:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T13:24:23","slug":"to-me-it-was-play-a-game-tyson-fury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/870284\/","title":{"rendered":"“To me, it was play, a game” – Tyson Fury\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tyson Fury has opened up with regards to his boxing match with Francis Ngannou, describing it at “a game”.<\/p>\n

Three years on from the boxing match that had the world watching, Tyson Fury<\/a>\u00a0has admitted that he did not take his fight with former UFC<\/a> heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou<\/a> seriously enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In October 2023, ‘The Gypsy King’ narrowly outpointed Ngannou ahead of taking on Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>. Winning on the scorecards via split decision (94-95, 96-93 & 95-94), many believed that Fury got a favourable decision on the night.<\/p>\n

After being dropped by Ngannou in the thrid round, Fury rallied and was able to just do enough to keep his undefeated record in tact and avoid major embarassment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tyson Fury Opens Up on Francis Ngannou Bout
\nAdmission<\/p>\n

Discussing the 2023 bout with ALF Global<\/a>, Fury admissed that:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t not train for him, because I \u2018didn\u2019t think he was a good fighter\u2019. I knew he was a good fighter, but to me it\u2019s levels to boxing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if I\u2019m fighting a world champion, then in my mind, he\u2019s a world champion; everything\u2019s good. But when you do an exhibition fight, play… It wasn\u2019t really a fight, do you understand what I\u2019m saying?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t, in my mind, a fight; it\u2019s just an exhibition, a game. To him, to Ngannou, it was: \u2018Ah, big fight. I fight Tyson Fury!\u2019 To me, it was play, a game. You know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

This would largely explain why Fury came into the bout looking slow, out of shape and highly unmotivated. It would also allude to why Anthony Joshua did so well against Ngannou when the two men fought. Unlike Fury, Joshua clearly respected the skill and power of the Cameroonian and brutally knocked him out in just two rounds.<\/p>\n

When comparing heavy hitters, Tyson Fury admitted that although the aura around Ngannou being a heavy hitter is well documented, he claims that “he doesn’t punch like (Deontay) Wilder, no way”.<\/p>\n

Fury had a well documented trilogy with Wilder, coming out on top in two of their three battles, with their first fight going to a draw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tyson Fury has opened up with regards to his boxing match with Francis Ngannou, describing it at “a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,29825,785,85,8691,787],"class_list":["post-870284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-francis-ngannou","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-tyson-fury","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}