Anthony Joshua and Francis Ngannou face off knowing victory could mean an eventual fight for the undisputed world heavyweight title against the winner of Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk.
How is it that a human-being constructed like Francis Ngannou can enter a fist fight as something of an enigma? It is right there staring you in the face, no veil to his threat nor any secrets as to where the danger lies. And yet mystery remains. A glaring ‘if’ remains.
Maybe the challenge facing Anthony Joshua is being over-sold? Maybe too much stock in the Ngannou power is a disservice to that of Joshua? Maybe Joshua resigns his counterpart to boxing irrelevance? Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe the Ngannou story takes another historic turn.
Regardless, there can be no denying the weight of the UFC star’s split-decision defeat to Tyson Fury in October, and the emphatic third-round knockdown that has since teed up Friday’s main event quite beautifully. What happens if he lands the same crashing left hand on Joshua? And what if he barely lays a glove on Joshua? Stay tuned.
The fight aesthetics are chiselled to perfection. You look right and gawp at Francis Ngannou, in awe of the cannon-fisted colossus grinning down the camera lense. Only to then look left and be reminded that Anthony Joshua is even bigger, coupled with the knowledge he is also twice as fast. Makes for quite the double take.
One big shot. What if Ngannou lands his one big shot? Does he pack more than one big shot with which to trouble Joshua? He is a proposition of intrigue, carved like a God and oozing with the confidence of a man that believes wholeheartedly he belongs on this stage.
“The flaming ferocious fists of Francis will finish Anthony Joshua,” said Ngannou’s trainer Dewey Cooper, on more than one occasion this week.
Matthew Macklin forwarded Wladimir Klitschko as perhaps the closest comparison when it comes to previous Joshua opponents of a similar size to Ngannou; Andy Clarke suggested Ngannou’s default instinct to match fire with fire if caught by a Joshua shot might feel similar to that of Andy Ruiz Jr, whose success against AJ had been built on his ability to throw back immediately after being hurt.
