PFL Europe’s Head of Fighter Operations says Francis Ngannou wasn’t representing MMA at fight with Tyson Fury

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Francis Ngannou’s new workplace’s Head of Fighter Operations, Dan Hardy, said the fighter was not representing MMA during the famous fight between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou on October 28.

‘I don’t think you can put a whole sport on someone’s shoulders. To me Francis wasn’t there representing MMA, he wasn’t there representing MMA striking,’ said Hardy. ‘He was there representing himself as a professional boxer for the first time in his career

Hardy believes Anthony Joshua and Derek Chisora cannot beat his new employees.

‘Even Anthony Joshua. I feel like he can’t deal with the power of Ngannou. Both physiologically and psychologically,’ he said. ‘I feel like if AJ hit the canvas in the third round, he would not regroup in the way that Tyson Fury did.

‘The likes of Derek Chisora or Carlos Takam or Joe Joyce, who’s upright, places his punches like amateur boxing points scoring style, that’s a great match up for Francis Ngannou.

‘So with the right match-ups, the right progress, I honestly think he could be the PFL heavyweight champ and the WBC champ at the same time.’

Contrary to the view of many, Dan Hardy opined that Fury’s hardest opponent yet was Ngannou.

‘Stylistically Fury is probably the most difficult opponent that Ngannou could have faced. His height, his trickiness, his fight IQ, his footwork, his upper body movement, his ability to read his opponents and set them up and break them down is like very, very few heavyweights. This is really why the Usyk fight’s interesting because he is a supreme technician with a very high fight IQ. You look at Deontay Wilder and he’s got decent boxing fundamentals and he’s a puncher, and he’s a great athlete,’ he said.

‘You look at Anthony Joshua, he’s a good technician and he’s a good athlete. I don’t feel like he’s a good ‘fighter’, I don’t feel like he likes the fight.

‘Derek Chisora, he loves fighting, he loves the chaos of the moment. I don’t feel like he’s going to have the technical skills to play at range with the likes of Ngannou.’

Then Hardy mentioned what many people wished had happened, which did not.

‘Say if Fury didn’t get up in the third round, people would say: ‘Well we knew he was a big puncher, he landed a big punch.’ If the fight was going to end in Ngannou’s favour that was the way it was going to be,’ he continued. ‘He almost exceeded people’s expectations in going the 10 rounds and in my opinion winning more rounds than Fury did.

‘So that furthers the conversation of yes he could fight AJ, yes he could fight Joyce, yes he could fight Chisora. Deontay Wilder’s a shootout until someone hits the canvas. That might be a back and forth, they might both go down a couple of times before we get a victor. There are holes in Deontay Wilder’s game that Fury doesn’t have. Stylistically Fury is a far more difficult opponent than potentially anybody else that Ngannou’s going to face in the heavyweight division.’

Many might disagree with the official on several things, but he seems to be right.