Eddie Hearn Believes Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou Will Be Less Competitive Than Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor

Eddie Hearn doesn’t think Francis Ngannou will be able to have much success against Tyson Fury.

Ngannou will be making his pro boxing debut on Oct. 28 against Fury, who is the current WBC champion. Although the former UFC champion is getting the biggest fight right away, Hearn thinks Ngannou should have got a boxing tune-up or two.

“When I spoke to [Ngannou], I actually thought maybe he should take a couple of easier fights and build his credibility to that mega-fight. But he made it quite clear he just wanted to straight into the big fight. I think the reason for that, in all honesty — I said this to Nate Diaz’s manager as well. I said that [Nate] should do the same thing. But the problem is, they’re not very good. And if you do that and get exposed as having no chance, so the mystery of, ‘Can he? Can he punch hard?’ [is gone],” Hearn told MMA Fighting.

Although Francis Ngannou is getting the biggest fight in boxing, he is a big underdog and Eddie Hearn doubts the fight will be too competitive. The promoter points to Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor and says it will be less competitive than that.

“When you actually see the fight, you’re going to realize very quickly as we did with Floyd and Conor, they can’t win. And that was a lot more competitive than this is going to be. Yes, one-punch knockout power and stuff like that, but it’s boxing vs. MMA. It’s absolutely irrelevant,” Hearn said.

“[Ngannou has] done 100 percent the right thing. He’s got the max as quickly as possible, without anybody having to see it. Because he could go in a small fight for less money and you go, ‘You actually can’t put this guy in the ring with Tyson. It’s actually a huge mismatch. So the mystery of ‘Is it a mismatch? Does he punch as hard as everyone says? Oh he was once a boxer!’ makes you tune in. So I think he’s played a blinder. Good luck to him. What a lovely guy, going to make a lot of money, good luck to him,” Hearn concluded.

Do you think Francis Ngannou vs. Oleksandr Usyk will be competitive?