Deontay Wilder’s trainer, Malik Scott, says people aren’t giving Tyson Fury credit for the good things he did in his win over Francis Ngannou last Saturday night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Malik states that Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs) deserved the win and fought well against Ngannou, but no one is giving him kudos for a job well done in his ten round split decision victory.
Scott says the reason Ngnnou is getting so much praise from fans is because he came from the MMA sport, and everything thought that he was going to lose. Since he fought better than they anticipated, they felt he should have been given the victory.
Malik thinks that Fury controlled the fight with his jab in the second half, and enough to deserve the victory.
Fans think Ngannou won because he landed the much harder shots in the fight, dropped Fury, and looked like he was doing more damage in each round. Fury was landing a lot of weak punches, which weren’t eye-catching like Ngannou’s, and he looked like he was in distress in the championship rounds.
Should Fury be praised?
“Ngannou, to me, he did so much better than so many people anticipated him to do that, but you got to keep things in perspective. In the second half of the fight, Fury’s jab took control of the fight,” said Malik Scott to Fighthype about whether Francis Ngannou deserved the win against Tyson Fury.
In the States, the judges give more weight to the harder shots, and they tend to give it to fighters who are mainly jabbing, which is what Fury was doing. You have to do more than jab and throw elbows if you want to win fights.
“Ngannou couldn’t really do nothing with him, and he went back to his corner, and his trainer told him, ‘You can’t just let him jab you like that.’ I thought he did really well. I didn’t think he won the fight, but I thought he did very well,” said Malik.
“I think he’s being praised more because it was Ngannou’s first fight. I wanted him to win, but I didn’t think he was going to win. My prediction was fair. A fighter is coming from MMA and fighting the so-called best heavyweight in this era,” said Scott.
It almost sounds like Malik Scott is jealous about the praise that Ngannou is receiving today because he fought so much better against Fury than Deontay Wilder did. As the trainer of Wilder, Malik is the captain of the ship, so he failed him.
“He goes in there, and he doesn’t just go ten rounds. He takes incredible chances and had good moments,” said Malik. “He got an official knockdown. The narrative was, ‘He wasn’t supposed to be that good. Since he did that well, we should give him the decision.'”
Ngannou is receiving praise not because he did more than what was expected. People think he genuinely won the fight, landing the harder shots, dropping Fury, and putting him on the run in the second half.
It has nothing to do with Ngannou fighting better than expected. People think he won, and he was a lot better against Fury than Wilder, who fell apart. Who told Deontay to bulk up for the trilogy fight with Fury in 2021? Was it Malik? If so, he blew it.
“I haven’t heard nobody talk about anything Fury did well in that fight at all,” said Scott. “They ain’t talking about nothing that he did good at all. He had to do something good.
Does Ngannou deserve top 10 ranking?
“He probably should have, but then again, Ngannou was probably thinking about going the distance,” said Malik when asked if Francis should have gone all out to try and finish Fury off after dropping him in the third round.
“It shows you the confidence he has in himself. He probably should have taken some chances to try and get Fury out of there. But at the same time, he believed in his conditioning, and if he did things the right way that he could prove to himself and to others that he could go the full ten rounds.
“His approach was incredible. He stayed calm, & cool during the build-up. He didn’t feed into the Fury antics. He did a very good job last night. He did more than hold his own against the best.
“I think he’s probably taking it overboard,” said Malik when asked his view on WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman saying he plans on giving Ngannou a top 10 ranking after his performance against Fury.
It makes sense for Ngannou to be ranked in the top 10 with the WBC because he proved himself as being worthy of a high ranking with his performance. The WBC needs to boot one of the contenders from the top 10 and replace that person with Ngannou.
WBC’s Top 10
1. Deontay Wilder
2. Anthony Joshua
3. Arslanbek Makhmudov
4. Frank Sanchez
5. Andy Ruiz
6. Jared Anderson
7. Efe Ajagba
8. Dillian Whyte
9. Martin Bakole
10. Joseph Parker
