Even though Francis Ngannou will fight Ciryl Gane for the UFC heavyweight title at UFC 270 next weekend, over in the boxing world they have very different plans for him.
Top Rank president Todd duBoef wants to capitalize on the speculation and intrigue surrounding a potential crossover fight between Ngannou and boxing champ Tyson Fury. He told MMAFighting that ultimately, it comes down to how much the athletes want to do it.
Top Rank executive says Fury vs Ngannou is a “no brainer”
“It has a sexy little synergy to it. How much does Fury want it? How much does Ngannou want it? We know that [Floyd] Mayweather and [Conor] McGregor really wanted it, and they were the driving force behind getting that done. At the end of the day, it may be the athletes that drive their respective partners to push that done.”
Ever since Conor McGregor stepped into the boxing right to fight Floyd Mayweather, setting pay-per-view records and making himself a fortune, potential crossover fights have been a huge part of combat sports. Few fighters have the star power of McGregor or Mayweather, but Tyson Fury is arguably one of them.
Of course, Dana White, the UFC president, would need to agree to this. Francis Ngannou has made it clear that he expects boxing to be a feature of his future.
The UFC president has notoriously clashed with Ngannou in public over his contract renegotiations, and with Top Rank chief Bob Arum. Neither relationship looks rosy enough for this crossover fight to happen any time soon, but duBoef says it’s still plausible.
“I think you guys are pulling a little bit into the personalities of two people, Bob and Dana, and I have a lot of history with a lot of people at the UFC.
So does Bob. I’ve known Dana for 20-plus, and [UFC COO] Lawrence Epstein and I grew up together as babies, so I wouldn’t play into that. All that is just a lot of good fodder for tabloids.”
First, Francis Ngannou and Tyson Fury need to remain champions, so Francis has to take Ciryl Gane out at UFC 270. After that, who knows?
“Maybe when both of those those things happen, we have a conversation, or maybe before. But I’m just responding to somebody saying, ‘Hey, what do you think of this?’ Honestly, I think it’s a very compelling product for the consumer, and I think it could work very easily. That’s what I think, if you ask my opinion.
To have the biggest, baddest man of MMA and the biggest, baddest man of boxing meet in the ring is a no-brainer. There’s not much hype you have to do there.”
Do you want to see Francis Ngannou step into the boxing ring? Let us know in the comments.
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