WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury said he wants the boxing world to “laugh” at him if he is knocked out by former MMA star Francis Ngannou in their non-title bout in Riyadh next month.
Fury and the former UFC heavyweight champion appeared at a media conference in London on Thursday to promote the fight.
“Let’s not forget I only trained six weeks for Deontay Wilder, I’m doing 12 weeks for Francis Ngannou. 12 weeks. So I need to be on my A game because there’s more on the line now than a boxing fight. If I lose to a number one contender or a champion, it’s like ‘Well he lost to a champion, whatever’. But if I lose to an MMA guy, I’m never going to be able to show my face in public again. It’s going to be ridicule, people are going to chuck it at me forever. So there’s more riding on this than there ever has been before. And whether the media want to take it as a joke or whatever they want to take it as, make no mistake – Tyson Fury will leave zero stones unturned and I will come in at my fittest and strongest and best I’ve ever been to defeat this man. And if I’m not and I get knocked out, I want you all to laugh at me, that’s what I want,” said Fury, the WBC heavyweight champion.
Ngannou – who has never fought as a professional – said the fight was a “dream”.
“First of all I’m very excited and I’m very happy you know. From having this dream since I was a kid to become a boxer and today it’s not just I’m going to box but I’m going to box the big guy on the mountain, you know. So for me, usually I would not pay attention to what’s going around but this thing is so big that I can’t stop thinking about it. For me, it’s more so like history about to be made in Riyadh on October 28th,” he said.
