Former heavyweight king Hasim Rahman was, like all of us, shocked at what he saw when Tyson Fury faced “novice” Francis Ngannou on October 28. Rahman, forever famous for shocking the great Lennox Lewis back in 2001, went as far as to say Fury, with his up-from-the-floor split decision win – one that could so easily have gone Ngannou’s way – “took himself out of the conversation” as far as if he is one of the greatest ever heavyweights.
Plenty of us felt Fury was undeserving of the honour even before he looked so bad against MMA star Ngannou, and now, Rahman is right, Fury’s rep took one heck of a tumble due to the way he looked against Ngannou. Rahman says he made boxing and the heavyweight division look bad.
“You cannot let a novice, new to boxing, with zero fights, put you down on the ground, and then [people] have an argument about who won the fight,” Rahman said to Fight Hype on the subject of the Fury-Ngannou stunner. “If it’s debatable, then Tyson didn’t serve it to the heavyweights. I like Tyson Fury, Fury was arguably one of the best to ever do it. But he took a big, big hit….getting dropped. I mean, if he only got dropped but he won every other round, it might not be so bad. But he was actually losing rounds to a novice fighter.”
It’s tough to argue with a single word Rahman said. Fury really does need to come back way stronger if he’s to have any hope of repairing his damaged rep. In an ideal world, Fury would grant the deserving Ngannou a return fight. Yes, we all want to see Fury fight Oleksandr Usyk for all the belts, but Fury – a man who so often bellows how he is a born fighting man – must surely know inside his heart that he needs to fight Ngannou again and beat him conclusively if he’s all he says he is.
Rahman feels Ngannou will fight another top heavyweight boxer, and the former champ says that if Ngannou fights Deontay Wilder, it will end badly for the former UFC heavyweight champ.
“I would love to see that fight,” Rahman said of Wilder-Ngannou. “I think that’s the fight that boxing needs. [But] It’s not really gonna do too much for Deontay, if he goes in and smokes him.”
But would Wilder “smoke” Ngannou? Will we get to see the fight? Who knows, but Hasim Rahman says Tyson Fury will now have to live with the fight he put up against Ngannou. Would a Wilder KO win over Ngannou “redeem” heavyweight boxing?
