Tyson Fury demands fight with Francis Ngannou with Mike Tyson as special guest referee if Usyk fight falls through
TYSON FURY wants a freak cage fight with former UFC heavyweight king Francis Ngannou - with Mike Tyson locked in there too - if the Oleksandr Usyk undisputed bout collapses.
Negotiations for the Spring showdown are well underway and hopes are high that the bout - for Fury’s WBC title and the WBA, IBF and WBO belts the Ukraine icon snatched off of Anthony Joshua - will happen.
But boxing businessman Fury, 34, wisely has a fallback plan in case the meeting with the 36-year-old southpaw fails to materialise.
Ngannou got in the Wembley ring after Fury’s 2022 win over Dillian Whyte in the hopes of lining up a crossover fight but he was under an exclusive contract with the UFC and nursing a knee injury.
But he has since left the American MMA brand, dropping his belt, and wants to take up boxing.
At Saturday night’s clash between Liam Smith and Chris Eubank Jr, Fury said: “I am very interested in the Francis Ngannou fight and he is not contracted to the UFC anymore.
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“I am interested in that and if the undisputed fight doesn’t get done then I will be looking to take on him, the so-called Baddest Man on the Planet.
“And we’ll make it interesting, a hybrid fight, maybe MMA gloves and in a cage but with Queensberry rules.
“It would be a colossal event wherever it happens.
"Me and him in a cage with 4oz gloves on. And maybe a superstar referee like Mike Tyson, just for bantz.”
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Hopefully, the back-up plan will not be needed and all the hard work Fury’s promoter Frank Warren has been doing with Team Usyk yields the ultimate battle.
And boxing historian Fury reckons it will be the latest fight of the century.
He said: “When I get the deal done everybody will know.
“I am not getting involved in doing deals, that’s what I pay Frank Warren and my lawyer to do, because all the back and forth drives me mad, he wants this and that. I am not getting involved.
“This is the fight of the century, they built Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier 1 as the fight of that century and there one before that was Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, the biggest crowd ever recorded at a boxing show.
“And now Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk to be the first heavyweight four-belt holder in history.
“There have been undisputed heavyweight champions before, the last was our Lennox Lewis, but that was for the three belts and not four. I will be the first of this era.
“I am an undefeated two-time world champion and he is an undefeated two-weight world champion, so it is a very interesting fight.”
Fury has also done the maths on how incredible his status is at the top of pugilism.
He said: “I am not bothered about history and legacy because that means you are over the hill and finished.
“I am active now and happy. I don’t give a damn about when I am gone.
“I am enjoying being world heavyweight champion and nowing that out of about seven billion people on the planet, I am the toughest, biggest, baddest, hardest, ugliest man of all seven billion.
“Well, if there’s seven billion people in the word, half of them must be women, so say three-and-a-half billion and out of all of them, under Queensberry Rules, I am the best.
“That is a lot to say and I am very proud of it.”
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There was just one ruthless line for Anthony Joshua, who turned down a December fight with Fury that Derek Chisora bravely took instead.
He said: “I am not even interested in talking about that tosser, that fight is in the past.”