Kamaru Usman knows it’s a wild take, but he thinks Oleksandr Usyk should fight Francis Ngannou next.
Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs) became undisputed heavyweight champion when he defeated Tyson Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) by split decision this past Saturday at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Ngannou put up a valiant effort in his boxing debut against Fury, but his knockdown wasn’t enough to grant him the win. However, his second boxing outing against Anthony Joshua didn’t go so well. Ngannou was knocked out by Joshua in March.
Usyk holds two wins over Joshua, and now Fury, but Usman thinks Ngannou possesses a specific attribute that would make things interesting.
“Skills pay the bills here,” Usman said on his “Pound 4 Pound” podcast with Henry Cejudo. “(Usyk is) not exactly the biggest heavyweight. He’s not the biggest puncher. But it’s his skills that pay the bills. I would love – and I know it’s crazy, and I know everyone is going to try to say something about it – but I would love to see him fight a guy like Francis Ngannou, only for the sheer fact of, yes, I want to see the level of skill here.
“Yes, he schooled the other guys. But Francis is the biggest puncher out there. I want to see how Oleksandr Usyk is able to break a guy like that down, take him to school and really show the skills required in boxing. It’s not just about being able to punch hard. So that’s the only reason I would want to see it. Francis coming off that loss, of course it’s not a good account for himself. He’s beaten everybody else.”
Fury thought he did enough to beat Usyk. He plans on exercising the rematch clause in the contract, making Usman’s idea highly unlikely.