By Philip O’Connor
(Reuters) – Heavyweight Otto Wallin was just as shocked as the rest of the boxing world when Francis Ngannou floored Tyson Fury but the Swede says it’s unlikely there will be a repeat against Anthony Joshua when the two meet in Saudi Arabia on Friday.
Former UFC heavyweight champion Ngannou lost to Fury in his first professional boxing match in Riyadh last October in what many expected would be an easy win for the giant British boxer.
However, the mixed martial artist managed to down Fury in the third round, sending shockwaves through the boxing world.
“A guy like Ngannou, who is that big and who hits that hard, always has a chance, but I’m having a hard time seeing him beating Joshua,” Wallin told Reuters from his home in New York where he is back in training.
The 33-year-old Wallin, who rose to prominence by going the distance before losing a world title fight to Fury in 2019, suffered only the second loss and first KO defeat of his pro career last December as Joshua out-boxed him over five rounds.
“Since boxing against Joshua, I have a lot of respect for him,” Wallin said.
The career of Joshua, 34, had hit a rocky patch as he lost his world titles to Andy Ruiz in 2019 before winning them back and then lost them again to Oleksandr Usyk in 2021 before another defeat in a rematch with the Ukrainian the next year.
Against Wallin, however, the Briton was back to his imperious best, a stinging jab and lightning left hook doing the damage before the Swede’s corner called it quits after the fifth round.
“Joshua was good – big, strong, long reach, he countered well,” Wallin explained.
“There were some concrete things that he did well that I don’t want to talk about, I want to keep them to myself, but there’s other concrete things that I need to practise and do better, and that’s what I’m working on now.”
SPLIT DECISION
Ngannou’s knockdown of Fury made little difference to the end result as he lost a split decision but the Cameroon-born French mixed martial artist won the respect of the boxing world.
“I was very surprised that Ngannou did as well as he did against Fury,” Wallin said.
“I thought he wouldn’t be able to do anything at all. He did very well, but at the same time I think Fury underestimated him a lot as everyone else did, including me.”
Ngannou’s rags-to-riches story saw him leave Cameroon for Europe to pursue his dream of being a professional boxer before pivoting to MMA and eventually becoming UFC heavyweight champion. The 37-year-old has worked hard to get to this point.
“I don’t think you can say that Ngannou was lucky, it was probably good timing for him against Fury,” Wallin said.
“No-one knew how good he was, no-one knew he was going to do as well as he did. Even if Fury didn’t underestimate him intentionally, it can easily happen – boxing is very psychological.”
Ngannou now faces an arguably bigger challenge against in-form Joshua on Friday and, even if Wallin was somewhat won over by the performance against Fury, the Swede says it’s unlikely he can derail Joshua’s attempt to get back to the very top.
“If Joshua wins I’d say they’ll aim for the winner of Fury-Usyk, but that can take time if there’s a rematch – in that case Joshua will meet someone else in the meantime, he’s been very active the last while,” Wallin added.
“But it’s going to be exciting to see what happens on Friday – we’re going to see how good Ngannou really is.”
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor; editing by Ken Ferris)
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