By Charles Brun: Carl Froch believes that there’s a good chance that Tyson Fury will be a lost, broken man, “psychologically damaged” from his loss to Francis Nganou last Saturday night, being exposed by a sheer novice who made his debut against the so-called #1 heavyweight on the planet in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Froch thinks that moving forward, Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs) could be a mental basketcase, lacking the confidence he once had after what Ngannou (0-1) did to him.
Fury could be a shell of his former self when he faces IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk in the first quarter 2024.
It would be a good idea for Fury’s promoters to move the fight into April or May and hope that he’s forgotten about what Nganou did to him because if he’s still haunted by that experience, he will be heading toward defeat.
“Yeah, there’s a massive chance that he’ll be psychologically damaged because to lose a fight that he thinks he’s going to win really, really easy, that’s a massive psychological thing,” said Carl Froch to the talkSport Boxing site about Tyson Fury’s mental state after his clear loss to Francis Ngannou last Saturday night.
You could see the fear in Fury’s eyes as he ran around the ring, throwing weak jabs & punches and getting nailed with much harder shots by Ngannou in every round of the fight. Once Fury tasted Ngannou’s power in the first round, you could see him thinking, ‘Man, I can’t let this guy hit me. He’s too powerful, and I can’t punch to save my life.’
“Everyone thinks he lost, so psychologically has got to damage him, but he’s probably making the excuse that he didn’t take the fight seriously,” Froch continued about Fury. “There will be a few reasons [given] for why he underperformed.
In scoring that fight professionally, Fury won maybe a couple of rounds, as his shots were weak and in no way comparable to the thunderous shots that Ngannou was landing.
The two judges that gave Fury the win basically scored the fight in how it’s done in the amateurs, which is a different sport entirely. In the amateurs, the judges score rounds based on any punches landed, no matter how weak.
The amateur boxing matches are essentially fencing, with the judges scoring anything that lands with the front of the glove. In the pros, the judges score rounds based on the harder, cleaner-landing shots. You can argue that the two judges who scored it for Fury did it using the amateur scoring method.
“Francis should have had his hand raised. I thought he won. 99.9% people thought he won,” said Froch about Ngannou.
Once Fury’s main weapon in his arsenal was taken away from him, with his inability to maul, he was just a wreck and completely useless last Saturday night.
Fury’s trainer, SugarHill Steward, really messed him up by turning him into a mauler because that style would never work against an MMA fighter who trained to deal with the clinching/mauling junk that Fury now uses 100% of the time to win fights. You hate to say it, but Fury was better off with his old trainer, Ben Davison, who had him moving & boxing, protecting his weak chin.
