Going into the usual money-making fights of established boxer vs. MMA fighter who either retired or left for the call of the money, the Tyson Fury vs Francis Ngannou fight was something I wasn't looking forward to at all and didn't watch. I never really cared all that much for boxing to begin outside of Tyson fights from many years ago and have not followed the sport for many years. I did see the boxing vs. MMA guys in a boxing ring to be an obvious cash cow and there were tons of idiots who lined up to watch it as the events took in an absolutely massive amount of money.
Fury himself said that he didn't really take the fight seriously and thought he was going to thrash Ngannou and figured the betting odds would be something like 1000-1 against Francis. Francis did a lot better than people expected though and even scored a knockdown of Tyson during the fight that had the fans in an uproar.
Fury went on to win by decision and there was apparently some controversy surrounding the decision. I can't say specifically what that controversy is because I don't pay much attention to this sport. For me, I always suspect that the boxers actually coordinate with the MMA fighters before the match to script the fights to a certain extent so that they can prolong the life of this "sport." It wouldn't be much fun if the boxers just absolutely dominated the MMA fighters and that's what I think is exactly what would have happened if Fury had prepared for this fight in the same way that he has for fights against other top names in boxing in the past.
Whatever the case is, Ngannou's performance in that fight vs. Fury, whether it is real or just perceived, put him on the map in the heavyweight division for boxing and not only that, it made him a top-10 competitor and he has a fight coming up this weekend against Anthony Joshua in Saudi Arabia. This fight would probably pass all of us by with most of us not even hearing about it if it hadn't been for Tyson Fury propelling Ngannau into the spotlight by agreeing to fight him in the first place.
Tyson made some rather funny statements on a recent interview stating that "I put him on the map, made him a multi-millionaire, and now I’m making him even more money." I don't think anyone is going to argue with that because it is 100% true. He went on to rub a little bit of salt into the wound by saying "He needs to get on his knees and kiss my feet, doesn’t he, for what I’ve done for him?”
Ngannou probably doesn't like to hear this but in my mind this is absolutely the case. Without Fury taking that fight Ngannou would likely have been defeated by Jon Jones in UFC and that would have made him likely less than $1 million. Then he would get one or two more fights at a rate of diminishing returns whether he bested Jones or not. The heavyweight division in UFC just isn't exciting anymore even with the addition of Jon Jones.
Financially speaking, Ngannou made that right decision by transitioning over to boxing but here is the thing: If Fury actually WAS taking it easy on Francis when they met up, I don't think that Anthony Joshua is going to give him the same treatment. If he gets dominated by Joshua this weekend, he will become a non-issue in boxing. Then I believe we will see him come crawling back to UFC.
This all may have been the plan from the start though, combat sports are so potentially filled with corruption that it is tough to know what the hell is really going on.