Despite being knocked out in the second round of his fight with Anthony Joshua, Francis Ngannou has no regrets, stating he was in his best condition and did everything possible to set himself up for success.
Francis Ngannou isn’t losing sleep over his fight with Anthony Joshua. It was a rough one, no doubt. Earlier this month, Ngannou stepped into the ring for his second professional boxing match. The venue? Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The opponent? Anthony Joshua.
The result? Well, it wasn’t pretty.
Ngannou was knocked out cold in the second round. He hit the canvas twice before the ref called it. Some folks thought this was a long time coming. They pointed to Ngannou’s 2023 bout with Tyson Fury, where he nearly pulled off a shocker, as a fluke.
Ngannou? He sees it differently. He chalks it up to an off night. But he’s not beating himself up over it. He knows he did everything he could to prepare.
He said, “This is one thing that also helped me to be OK with it: as far as a training camp, I had my best training camp.” He was in peak condition. He wouldn’t change a thing. Everything was good, except for the fight day. That day was just… odd.
Ngannou can’t quite put his finger on what went wrong. But others have plenty of theories. Some think his win against Tyson Fury was a fluke. That Fury just underestimated him.
Ngannou’s critics were quick to point out his decision to switch to southpaw in the first round. They say it led to the first knockdown. They say it’s proof that “The Predator” was out of his depth against a top-tier boxer. Ngannou? He doesn’t buy it.
“I do not have any regrets,” he said. “Now that I lost the fight, we can say anything that I’ve done wrong. We worked on everything, and everything was OK. This was all my [choice]. Even in southpaw, my defense is more sharp than orthodox. In the southpaw, to take a hit from the right back hand, this is something that in sparring never happened, and I’ve been there so many times practicing.
“So I really have no regrets, because that was our training and we improved everything. I really have no regrets. We worked toward that, we made that decision, and we stand by it. … With the same southpaw, I think we basically won the fight against Tyson.”
The loss did change some perspectives. Not just for the critics. After the knockout, even some MMA bigwigs suggested Ngannou could lose to Joshua in an MMA fight. Some even wanted him to quit boxing.
Ngannou? He doesn’t care. He’s going to keep doing what he loves. He’s not bothered by what others think.
“It doesn’t bother me,” he said. “I think I get to the point where, we have been here so many times talking about drama, what people think, what people say, that I think I’m at the point where I don’t really let what people say affect me. I don’t mind that much what people say, because they will always have something to say. But I also think this was exactly what was expected. I think if I was treated wrong, everything that happened was just to restore this, because regardless, I kind of disrespected the system a little bit.”