{"id":871254,"date":"2026-08-28T08:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T08:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871254\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T08:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T08:54:12","slug":"tyson-fury-admits-he-didnt-train-for-francis-ngannou-it-was-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871254\/","title":{"rendered":"Tyson Fury admits he didn&#8217;t train for Francis Ngannou: &#8216;It was play&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/fighter\/Tyson-Fury-361781\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tyson<br \/>\nFury<\/a> has admitted he did not take <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/fighter\/Francis-Ngannou-152341\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Francis<br \/>\nNgannou<\/a> seriously, a mindset that nearly cost him the<br \/>\nfight.<\/p>\n<p>Fury faced Ngannou in October 2023 in the latter&#8217;s professional<br \/>\nboxing debut. Despite being knocked down by a powerful punch in the<br \/>\nthird round, Fury recovered to edge Ngannou by split decision over<br \/>\n10 rounds.<\/p>\n<p>Francis Ngannou knocked Fury down after the heavyweight<br \/>\ndismissed the bout as an exhibition<br \/>\n<br \/>\nIn a recent interview with ALF Global, Fury admitted he was<br \/>\nunderprepared for his bout with Ngannou. He explained that he<br \/>\nviewed the matchup more as an exhibition than a serious fight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, I didn\u2019t train for him because I didn\u2019t think he was a good<br \/>\nfighter,\u201d Fury said. \u201cI knew he was a good fighter, but to me it\u2019s<br \/>\nlevels to boxing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fury explained that he viewed the matchup differently because the<br \/>\nformer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/organizations\/Ultimate-Fighting-Championship-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\nUltimate Fighting Championship<\/a> champ doesn\u2019t have any boxing<br \/>\ncredentials or accolades. The Englishman also discussed Ngannou\u2019s<br \/>\nmindset going into the fight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you do an exhibition fight, play, it wasn\u2019t really a fight,<br \/>\ndo you understand what I\u2019m saying?\u201d Fury said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t, in my<br \/>\nmind, a fight; it\u2019s just an exhibition, a game. To him, to Ngannou,<br \/>\nit was, \u2018Ah, big fight, I fight Tyson Fury!\u2019 To me, it was play, a<br \/>\ngame, you know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fury is rumored to be taking on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/fighter\/Anthony-Joshua-356779\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anthony<br \/>\nJoshua<\/a> later this year, with negotiations still underway<br \/>\nregarding the date and location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tyson Fury has admitted he did not take Francis Ngannou seriously, a mindset that nearly cost him the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[4225,64,63,802,44,85],"class_list":["post-871254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871254","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=871254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}