{"id":293602,"date":"2023-10-31T13:24:12","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T13:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/?p=293602"},"modified":"2023-10-31T13:24:12","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T13:24:12","slug":"exclusive-eddie-hearn-claims-joshua-beats-ngannou-inside-three-rounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/boxing\/exclusive-eddie-hearn-claims-joshua-beats-ngannou-inside-three-rounds\/","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Eddie Hearn claims Joshua beats Ngannou inside THREE rounds"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>EXCLUSIVE: Eddie Hearn claims Anthony Joshua will beat Francis Ngannou inside THREE rounds on &#8216;The Hook&#8217;&#8230; after saying that Tyson Fury looked like HE was the one that had never boxed before in their &#8216;Battle of the Baddest&#8217;<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Matchroom promoter made bold claims about British heavyweight fighter\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Ngannou put in a distinguished performance against the Gypsy King in Riyadh\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Listen to Mail Sport&#8217;s new boxing podcast THE HOOK &#8211; with exclusive interviews<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Eddie Hearn has claimed that Anthony Joshua could beat Francis Ngannou in three round on Mail Sport&#8217;s The Hook &#8211; despite the MMA fighter making Tyson Fury look like a novice during\u00a0Saturday&#8217;s &#8216;Battle of the Baddest&#8217;.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Gypsy King anticipated a rout in Riyadh ahead of the crossover clash, but was taken the distance by Ngannou over 10 rounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ngannou managed to drop Fury but the fight ended with Fury claiming victory by split-decision, setting up a forthcoming clash against Oleskandr Usyk.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But the Matchroom promoter was the latest voice to express his surprise at the result, calling Fury&#8217;s performance &#8216;dreadful&#8217;.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;People saying &#8220;oh, he&#8217;s let the boxing world down&#8221; &#8211; I don&#8217;t think that really matters,&#8217; Hearn told The Hook on Tuesday. &#8216;I think it was good for boxing in that it was an incredible spectacle. What Saudi Arabia did with the production, and the ring walks was amazing.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/31\/12\/77218787-12692905-image-a-30_1698755724305.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Eddie Hearn has predicted a towering victory for Anthony Joshua against Francis Ngannou<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/31\/12\/77218761-12692905-image-a-31_1698755728504.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The Cameroonian MMA star (centre) nearly pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the sport<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/31\/12\/77218751-12692905-image-a-32_1698755731085.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Ngannou knocked down Tyson Fury in Riyadh &#8211; but the Gypsy King won by split decision<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But before the fight I gave Francis Ngannou zero chance of winning, like, on paper it&#8217;s just the most terrible mismatch. A guy who has never had a professional boxing match. And I think there was definitely an element of Tyson looking through him, he wasn&#8217;t as well prepared as he should have been, but it was still an awful performance.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;They&#8217;re now talking about Ngannou as arguably the number one in the heavyweight division, and it&#8217;s the biggest load of rubbish I&#8217;ve ever heard because he was definitely much better than people expected he would be &#8211; but he can get beat by anybody from English title level (all the way up) to the number one.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But there&#8217;s some big fights out there for him now.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>One of them could come in the form of Hearn&#8217;s fighter Anthony Joshua, and Hearn shared that he had previously spoken with Joshua about the possibility of the match-up six months before his Saudi showdown with Fury.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/31\/12\/77220337-12692905-image-a-28_1698755678577.jpg\" height=\"397\" width=\"306\"><\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He went, &#8220;I&#8217;m not interested in that, almost a bit gimmicky &#8211; I want to win the world heavyweight title again&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But now,<span>\u00a0having in most people&#8217;s opinion beaten Tyson Fury at the weekend, how can he not be credible &#8211; whether it&#8217;s AJ, whether it&#8217;s Wilder,&#8217; Hearn continued.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Hearn also stressed that he &#8216;felt&#8217; for Ngannou because\u00a0&#8216;if he would have got the final result on paper, it would have gone down as one of the greatest sporting victories. Forget\u00a0 boxing &#8211; in the history of sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Fury looked scared in the back end of the fight. Everytime they got in a clinch, he looked like he was getting flung around. It was a difficult fight in that no one really did a lot in the back end but &#8211; but because (Ngannou) dropped him and because he won those early two rounds, for me, he won the fight.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;When the final bell went, I went oh my God, he&#8217;s lost. Most people&#8217;s reaction was that Ngannou won the fight. I can&#8217;t believe it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Fury looked like the guy who&#8217;s never boxed before.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When asked about the possibility of Ngannou facing Joshua for his next high-profile bout, Hearn hinted about a potential match-up, but stayed vague.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The only thing AJ has on his mind is to become three-time heavyweight champion,&#8217; Hearn said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;AJ-Ngannou fight is a monster. Two absolute man mountains and I love the fight because I think it&#8217;s easy work for Anthony Joshua.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;All these poeple now who think that Ngannou is going go out and beat AJ, beat (Deontay) Wilder, beat (Zhilei) Zhang &#8211; me, I respect what he&#8217;s done but I&#8217;m a nonbeliever.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We love the fight. It&#8217;s a massive fight in Saudi. (A fight) that could create history in Africa, like a Rumble in the Jungle two. It&#8217;s massive.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The crazy thing is, some people are calling it a 50-50 fight. So I&#8217;m all over it. If you really think that, make the fight.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/31\/12\/77220393-12692905-image-a-33_1698755761083.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Hearn claimed that Fury looked like a novice next to competent performance from Ngannou<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/31\/12\/77220355-12692905-image-a-29_1698755712488.jpg\" height=\"432\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Joshua has beaten Jermaine Franklin and Robert Helenius (pictured) since losing to Oleksandr Usyk last year<\/p>\n<p>Hearn was also bullish about his fighter&#8217;s chances.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I know AJ wins that fight inside three, six rounds max. So we&#8217;ll see.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But Ngannou got to give him the credit. He&#8217;s a big strong boy, and he&#8217;s put himself in a strong position.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>After losing his rematch to Usyk last August, Joshua has recorded back-to-back wins against Jermaine Franklin and Robert Helenius.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/31\/12\/77220339-12692905-image-a-26_1698755666603.jpg\" height=\"183\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/boxing\/article-12692905\/Eddie-Hearn-claims-Anthony-Joshua-beat-Francis-Ngannou-inside-THREE-rounds-Hook-saying-Tyson-Fury-looked-like-one-never-boxed-Battle-Baddest.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>EXCLUSIVE: Eddie Hearn claims Anthony Joshua will beat Francis Ngannou inside THREE rounds on &#8216;The Hook&#8217;&#8230; after saying that Tyson Fury looked like HE was <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/boxing\/exclusive-eddie-hearn-claims-joshua-beats-ngannou-inside-three-rounds\/\" title=\"EXCLUSIVE: Eddie Hearn claims Joshua beats Ngannou inside THREE rounds\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293601,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>EXCLUSIVE: Eddie Hearn claims Joshua beats Ngannou inside THREE rounds - Sportstoft<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/boxing\/exclusive-eddie-hearn-claims-joshua-beats-ngannou-inside-three-rounds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"EXCLUSIVE: Eddie Hearn claims Joshua beats Ngannou inside THREE rounds - Sportstoft\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"EXCLUSIVE: Eddie Hearn claims Anthony Joshua will beat Francis Ngannou inside THREE rounds on &#8216;The Hook&#8217;&#8230; 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