Inside story of negotiations for Francis Ngannou vs Tyson Fury super-fight
Francis Ngannou has revealed he needed just two two weeks to thrash out a deal with Tyson Fury for their super-fight in Saudi Arabia.
The then UFC heavyweight champion first met Fury in the ring after the Brit's win over Dillian Whyte at Wembley Stadium in April of last year, but his restrictive contract cost him the chance to even discuss the fight. And with the boxer seemingly deep in talks for an undisputed clash with Oleksandr Usyk, the bout appeared lost.
Ngannou began discussing the possibility of a showdown with Deontay Wilder to determine the world's hardest puncher, but those talks fell by the wayside. And after making his first PFL appearance at cageside where he stared down Jon Jones, the Cameroonian was finally given a concrete offer to face Fury, with negotiations starting weeks later in New York.
"It really started about one month ago, maybe five weeks ago," Ngannou told The MMA Hour last night. "Then I received a call from people in Saudi and they were like, 'Okay, they want to do this fight, let's meet in New York' and I wasn't very excited, I was like, 'Okay, let's find out what's going on'.
"I was already going to be in New York so I get in New York and I meet people and we start to talk. It was this quick, the negotiation went on and off less than two weeks. I knew the people behind this that it was happening - I haven't spoken to Tyson myself or anyone of his team but we don't have to speak, we're going to meet at the press conference."
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With Fury talks yet to begin, Wilder even went as far as making an appearance at Ngannou's new home; a PFL show in Atlanta. He offered a two-fight deal that could see an unprecedented move into the smart cage, but instead ended up agreeing to a fight with Anthony Joshua that is likely to happen at the end of the year.
Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou's fight talks lasted just days (Top Rank Boxing /Youtube)Do you think Francis Ngannou has any chance against Tyson Fury? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
"There was something but nothing was really done," Ngannou continued. "It was just a talk, we had a talk with Deontay before and then it got interrupted and after that we were having a talk for a potential fight in November, maybe in South Africa and then this came around and became very very true in the span of a week.
"I think [Wilder] had some sort of a proposal for December to fight Anthony Joshua and they said they'd rather explore that one because he wanted to get back to the title. That makes sense, that was only the reason so we just put a pin in it and we can explore that in future.
"The Tyson fight was a tough one and there was a point where I was like 'is this going to happen?' But at the end of the day if it doesn't happen it's not the only boxing fight out there and it's not like a one-shot thing so I can go out there and make other fights, but this one was the most tough one."
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