Nigeria’s world heavyweight boxing champion, Anthony Olaseni Oluwafemi Joshua has been linked in a ‘hypothetically’ possible megabucks showdown with Cameroon’s new Ultimate Fighting Championship star, Francis Ngannou, megasportsarena.com reports.
Although both fighters are currently in different fisty sport events, respected combat sports journalist, Gareth A. Davies of The Telegraph pointed out that the lure of money could draw them together in a massive face-off.
Recounting the historic bout between boxing Floyd Mayweather Jnr and UFC’s Conor McGregor some years back, Davies is of a view that Joshua versus Ngannou could also be on the cards sometime in the near future.
While the world still awaits an all-British showdown between Joshua and Tyson, Davies believes contest in the near future would be to put the UFC’s fabled puncher and latest heavyweight champion in the ring with whoever reigns supreme in boxing after the much-anticipated British double-header.
“I think if Francis Ngannou fights anyone it will be Tyson Fury or Anthony Joshua. Ngannou’s Cameroonian, Anthony Joshua has Nigerian heritage. Can you imagine that? The rumble in Lagos between those two? I’d fly over for that, no problem. Maybe they could do one boxing match and one MMA match?” Davies suggested, speaking to Sky Sports.
“But Tyson Fury against Francis Ngannou, too. Tyson Fury’s talked about it. He’s even sparred with world kickboxing champions. And I’ve spoken to him before and he told me he’d definitely do an MMA fight. I could see it happening.”
The hypothesis received a major boost with popular online viewing site, You Tube reeling out a simulated bout on video between Joshua and Ngannou, based on a recent declaration by the UFC fighter that he would love to take on the four-belt boxing champion some day.
Ngannou also threw a veiled challenge at Joshua, as he confessed in the wake of his historic revival on Saturday that he would love to step into the boxing ring along the way and it could turn out to be the next big bout to talk about, should ‘AJ’ and Fury eventually agree on a proposed £200m unification clash.
‘AJ’ is currently WBA, IBF, WBO, and IBO heavyweight treble title holder and Fury is the WBC heavyweight champ, while Ngannou finally reached the UFC summit after knocking out Miocic in their rematch, having initially lost in 2018.
He has now followed on from dethroning Miocic by declaring his desire to face AJ or The Gypsy King in the ring, as Ngannou hinted at the possibility of making a bumper big-money crossover, with inspiration gained from his fighting hero, Mike Tyson, who he aimed to emulate after his move to Paris from Cameroon and venture into mixed martial arts (MMA).
Ngannou told ESPN: “This is in the future, it’s somewhere, definitely. I’m going to box; I have to box in my career. My main dream has always been the noble art and even though I deviated into MMA, which I love, I still have to fulfill something in boxing.”
