That brutal knock out Francis Ngannou suffered against Anthony Joshua was seen by the entire world that enjoys boxing. It is an image that will be hard to erase from his memory and he is even starting to look for excuses. More than the KO itself, Ngannou’s ego was hurt bad after his impressive debut against Tyson Fury.
In a recent statement from him, Francis accused Anthony Joshua’s team of wasting precious time when he arrived at the arena right on time. This proves how novice Ngannou is at this fighting game and that getting played like this will likely happen again. He had already spoken about this on an Instagram live but he doubled down during his recent interview with Ariel Helwani at ‘The MMA Hour’.
He said: “Listen, I think we both fight at 3am. It’s not like I fought at 3 a.m. and he fought at like midnight or something. We both fought at 3am. What I think, something that’s happened is that they get me to the arena very early. Like my pickup time was 10.30pm to go to the arena. And then when we get to the arena, they tell us that we are scheduled around 1.45am. right? They come to the locker around 1 and Joshua [was just arriving around 1]. I’m like, ‘OK, we are fighting at the same time, how come I have a pickup time?’ We received a schedule, an email, and then for some reason I was there at least one hour before. But for the fight, at least two hours beforehand. They do this kind of trick to get you tired. I was like cool, I was like, ‘Bro, it’s OK.’ I didn’t know how it was, how important that was, until the fight day that I have to get there two hours before.”
Eddie Hearn responds to Francis Ngannou’s accusations
Anthony Joshua did not respond to these accusations, nor do we think he ever will respond because that is how the game is played. Fighters who know this sport will all tell you that they need to be prepared for anything. Ngannou wasn’t prepared for getting his time wasted and that played a significant role in his defeat. For promoter Eddie Hearn, he only responded with a poignant quip: “I’m not sure he has come around yet.”
