MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou Is Official

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

Luke Thomas is here with an instant reaction to the news that Tyson Fury will face Francis Ngannou in a boxing match in October. What are Luke's thoughts on this matchup? Is this the best possible outcome for Francis? Tune in to find out. Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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in the boxing and MMA world about a boxing match, one you might care about. The lineal heavyweight champion in Tyson Fury is now set to face Francis Nganou in a boxing match October 28th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Yes, in fact, it is real. First time I ever can think of a bout where the lineal heavyweight champion is fighting the lineal MMA champion. Of course, that's never really happened at all. There's been the Ali Enaki thing, which was a different thing for a different era, but kind of interesting that we have that. So let's get to what we know about the bout. As I mentioned, October 28th, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. From the release that went out,

and of course this has been announced by all the parties, including Top Rank and Francis Ngannou and Tyson Fury, that it will be scored under the 10-point must system. It will be a real boxing bout. More on that in just a second. It will be taking place in a ring, not a cage. It's going to be a boxing bout, but here's the catch. They do not mention in the release or in any report whether Tyson Fury's WBC title would be

on the line, and they don't mention anything, obviously, about this being an exhibition or a pro bout. They have left that murky, and why is that relevant? Listen, it's not the case that if it's an exhibition bout, that means that they can't KO one another. That's not the rule, but the rule would be if it's not a professional contest and it is an exhibition, you can have judges, but they're only there in a performative role. Those bouts wouldn't count on either of their professional records, right? So that would be the difference there. People think that if it's an exhibition, that means that they can't really KO each other. They could if they decided to, if they wanted to go that route. It just means whatever happens, it doesn't count on anyone's record.

So that's sort of where we are right now at this moment in time. I'm sure we'll get more details as time passes. But it is happening. It is in October. It is in Saudi Arabia. It is a boxing match. The limits of that boxing match and the relevancy remains unclear. Full steam ahead. So that's point number one point number two let's talk about this this is a terrible day and I truly mean a terrible

day for all of the folks who said that the best bet for Francis Ngannou amidst his leaving the UFC would be to come crawling back on his hands and knees and return to the Ultimate Fighting Championship and beg for forgiveness and return. And I mean, he could go back to the UFC after fighting Tyson Fury. He might, but it might be to buy equity at that point, right? I mean, let's just be serious about this. It wasn't to say that Francis's reasons for leaving the UFC carried no risk. That would simply not be accurate. It carried a substantial amount of risk. And by the way, this fight could

fall through before we ever get there. We still haven't even begun his MMA PFL campaign. I mean, there's a lot of room left for, not that I'm wishing upon him, but nothing is done until it is done. There are all kinds of ways things can get derailed. But, and even before that, just getting to this point was going to be difficult. Attracting a suitor with a big name in boxing for a bout was going to be difficult. We all thought at the time Fury was going to make that fight with Usyk. More on that in a moment. We all thought at the time, you know, he's taken six months off.

He's not going to fight until 2024. A whole year really. Two years in the end. But he's going to take all of 2023 off to not fight MMA. I mean, this is insanely risky. Those concerns were reasonable, but that people could conclude, right, that they could use all of that information and decide, I guess we're done here. He now needs to go back. That was premature to begin with. It was motivated reasoning. And frankly, a lot of it was just because folks have some kind of an attachment to UFC, either financial or emotional. That's not really a rational conclusion to make. Rational to have apprehensions, rational to be understanding of the circumstances, rational to be somewhat, and maybe in certain cases, very cautious, not rational at all to decide the

process had then been resolved and the only thing left was to go back on his hands and knees to the UFC. That was not rational. That was never a good take. That was never a fair assessment. So that's number two. Point number three, we don't have any financial figure based on what we know and what has been released to the public. However, taking place in Saudi Arabia probably tells you that this is going to be a substantial payday for both involved. I don't know exactly where things will end up with Francis when it's all said and done. $20 million doesn't seem in any way out of the realm of possibility and potentially a lot more, but I guess we'll have to see once we finally get there. Because it's in Saudi Arabia, you are going to guess that the vast majority of that money is

going to be guaranteed. So that should be looked at as well. However, the one thing that we don't also have is we don't really know what the broadcast is going to look like, where it's going to air, who's going to air it, who's going to be on the broadcast, how are they going to treat it, what the other fights on the card are. So the good news for Francis is that whatever money he gets will be significant and it will be guaranteed. But on the pay-per-view end, whatever else he might get, it's hard to make any conclusion about that just because we don't really know how it's going to be distributed, what they're going to charge. That remains very much unclear. Point number three. Point number four, let's talk about the fan bases here, right?

On either side of the equation. And the reason I say that is because this fight will probably do really well because it's big star versus big star in unusual pairing. Now, whether that appeals to you personally, very different matter. But remember, the biggest audience in combat sports is the one that often pays attention the least. It's the casual fans. And they come back for the big names. They come back for what they believe is some kind of gigantic fight.

And sometimes they come back for fights that are gigantic. Sometimes they come back for fights that are not. They just have big names and they don't know any better. You might, in fact, argue that that is what we have happening here. I don't really know. Here's what I can say. The boxing fans are absolutely furious with Tyson Fury. No pun intended. They are angry, extremely angry. Here is what the boxing fans' perspective is. They've been waiting for Tyson Fury to fight since his last contest. And it's been a while. He was supposed to fight Usyk. The negotiations fell apart. A lot of people blame Tyson for those negotiations falling apart. And now he is taking what in all likelihood appears to be an exhibition bout against an MMA fighter, not even in the UFC anymore. Like the,

the boxing fans who wanted Tyson to fight Usyk, to unify all the belts, put one face, one name, on heavyweight immortality for this generation, and the fact that they think, in many cases, a lot of folks that believe that he has ducked Usyk, it's hard to make an argument that he really put his best foot forward to get it, but either way, the boxing fans are pissed at this one. So that's only the very hardcore boxing fans.

I don't think that's a wide segment of people who are willing to pay to watch boxing. But it should be noted, hardcore boxing fans don't love this announcement at all. And MMA fans, I think, are somewhat split-ish on this one a little bit. There are a lot of folks who are saying, hey, listen, I'm really happy for Francis that he's getting paid. I'm going to watch to support him. This is great. Who knows? He might knock out Tyson Fury. Stranger things have happened. That's kind of one perspective. Another one I've seen is, hey, I also am happy for Tyson Fury. Excuse me. I'm also happy for Francis Ngannou. I apologize.

To get paid. To get paid and finally get some serious money that he has been looking for, especially if you're taking all this risk. However, I don't know how much I love the fight, but I'm happy for Francis. I've seen that, and I've seen people being like, this fight means nothing, it's a joke, Francis sucks, blah, blah, blah. You sort of run the gamut. But the first two were the more common positions I've seen. Listen, there are going to be hardcore fans in either direction

who aren't going to love this. There's going to be folks who say, for boxing fans, again, that Fury is not taking the fight with Usyk, but on the MMA side, they would rather see Francis fighting Jon Jones. They would rather see Francis fighting Sergei Pavlovich. They would rather see Francis fighting somebody in MMA, maybe even on the PFL side, rather than going and taking a boxing fight he is almost certain to lose. I understand that. I actually think both of those perspectives are pretty fair. I don't think it's really wrong to say that the people who feel that way are somehow being unfair to Francis or unfair to the process. People like what they like in combat sports.

And I get hardcore fans having a disagreement with this fight from either side of the MMA or the boxing aisle. I would just say, if you feel that way, I don't really judge folks about it. Again, I think they're going to be overruled at the box office by the casual fans, but it should be noted that hardcore fans probably have a very different perspective about this fight than who it's appealing to. This really isn't a fight for the hardcores in that way. It is if you're like a Francis fan and you want him to do well, but it's not so much

for the competitiveness of it or the relevancy of it or the legacy of it. It's really something very different. Okay, that's point number five, whatever we're up to here. Point number six or five, whichever one we're on. Here is something else we really need to just have a very frank and clear discussion about. This day was made possible by the fighter lawsuit. You know, you guys hear me on this channel and my own discuss quite frequently how much I dislike the state of MMA news and MMA media and what they really report on. And of course they have reported on this, but it's been mostly like just a handful of guys who have done it. John Nash, mostly. Paul Gift is another one. And there's been a handful of others less than that who have really done some active reporting on it. From my perch,

I've tried to amplify their work, but I've not done exactly any hardcore work on this one either, if we're just going to be transparent about it. But certainly, you guys hear me talk about what is relevant and what matters, and we do make a point to get incorporated into morning combat. Here is a great example. The only reason a day like today happened is because there was a class action lawsuit against the UFC. The UFC, in the process of this lawsuit moving forward through the court system, eventually decided to introduce into a series of contracts, at the time in which Francis Ngannou was signing one, basically a five-year expiration or sunset clause.

In other words, it enabled him by allowing the contract to expire within a semi-reasonable amount of time to then free himself from the contract and then ultimately go and seek services of various promoters or opportunities elsewhere. By the way, those provisions that Francis was able to use to get out, some of them are not altogether gone, but they have been very much weakened. In some cases, they're gone, but in other ones, the overall picture of being able to get out of a UFC contract if you're a champion like Francis, many, many, many of those provisions have been weakened. And now remember, we also know based on some of the reporting of the gentleman I have aforementioned, that the new contracts that folks sign requires them to not take to take part in any future class action lawsuit. So they're actually like, preventing people from ever getting on board with this in the future. But the only reason that we know about this stuff is because of what reporting was done to make it happen, like from the lawsuit itself.

Like that's why media coverage in MMA to me is completely broken. It's all like what some guy tweeted about another guy's mom or something, which is just absolutely meaningless in the grand scheme of things. And what actually is important is the coverage of the business cycle, the coverage of the lawsuit, the coverage of the business cycle, the coverage of the lawsuit, the coverage of the earnings report, all the things that are kind of boring and don't necessarily draw the clicks because you actually have to be an adult

and you actually have to care and you actually have to be interested in the mechanics of power and you have to be interested in what actually moves the world, not what narratives make us feel good about participating in a sport, right? That's the coverage that actually matters. That's the stuff that we benefit from. not what narratives make us feel good about participating in a sport, right?

That's the coverage that actually matters. That's the stuff that we benefit from. That's the stuff that ultimately helps change things. It's the coverage of what we found out from this lawsuit that essentially compelled the UFC to make, at least for a brief moment in time anyway, some changes. Look at the fruits that that bore. Look at that. Look at the tree that was planted

and all of the stuff that happened afterwards. Look at now the fruit. Now, I don't mean to say that I think anybody can now do that. Again, the contracts have changed. Francis is a unique case. He was the heavyweight champion. This is not something that you can just do at scale very easily but rather look at what happens when people actually try to do something about fighter pay in a real and meaningful way of course the class action lawsuit is about more than than just

that uh and then it gets reported on now it's in the public consciousness now it's in the public record look what this does to force change this This is real. This is this, ladies and gentlemen. This is MMA journalism. That's what MMA journalism looks like. It doesn't look like previews. It doesn't look like reviews. That's media, right? And that's fine.

That actually is valuable. There's nothing wrong with that. It's what I mostly do. It actually serves a function. Okay, fair enough. But journalism is separate. Journalism is actually holding the powerful accountable, not trying to get access to them so you can be a favorable outlet. That's journalism. That's what it looks like. And look at the power that it has.

So when you think about your daily intake of what kind of news you get and where you get it, you should take a look at it and you should ask yourself how much of it is actually this kind of stuff that all feeds into it. And all the questions that get raised about fighter pay based on these reports and how much that influences the public consciousness. That, ladies and gentlemen, is media. I should always say all of it is media. That is journalism. Right there. And then last but not least, I thought there might be a case for this to have four-ounce gloves if they were going to go that direction.

They ended up not going that direction. I didn't hate that personally. I thought the four-ounce gloves were actually pretty cool. But I guess, you know, it takes all kinds. The last thing I'd say is, do you find the fight competitive? No, probably not. There is no good reason Tyson Fury shouldn't win. That isn't to say that he won't or will. Combat sports is crazy. Francis has been a defier of the odds for quite some time. But no, seven or eight at this point, is just about the story of Francis Ngannou more in particular. Let's end there.

I mean, really, that's why we're all here talking about it. Francis is one of the most remarkable athletes and humans I've ever covered. You know, to come from a place where he didn't have money for school books, even pencils and papers, working in mines. By the time he was, I think, 10 years old, living on the streets homeless after crossing dangerous terrain and ultimately to get to Northern Africa and then France, building himself up into this contender, beating all of the folks that he did, taking on the most institutional... I mean, the MMA industry is the UFC at this point. There's not much room for any other player.

He took on the biggest one, and now on the other side of it, despite all of the other proxies doing what they could to benefit the UFC narrative here, he still came out on top, it looks like. He is just a continuous defier of the odds. He is a continuous author of his own success, and it is remarkable.

You just won't see a lot of guys like Francis Ngannou really ever. And I know that doesn't make MMA fans who aren't interested in this fight because it's boxing or whatever, it doesn't change their opinion, and I understand that. And if you're a boxing fan and you wanted Tyson Fury to box, uh, Alexander Usyk, I get it. I totally get it. I think those criticisms are fair to be quite honest with you.

I totally understand it. But at the same time, you just can't do anything. But if you're a human being, have admiration for the perseverance, the will to succeed, the drive, the fire in his belly, the self-belief of Francis Ngannou, all of us could learn a lesson from him about what it means to believe in yourself and what it means to take risks, but also how and when and why you take those risks and what motivates you to do that and having the right reasons and the right strategic thinking about it. Man, look what you can do. He is a testament to the power of the human will. And he is a testament to how all of that can carry you to the greatest heights that prize fighting can basically take you. Amazing guy. Amazing guy. We'll have more on this on

tomorrow's MK. What do you think about the fight? Do you like it? Do you hate it? Are you going to pay for it? Give me your sense of things. Leave a comment below so we can gauge how the fans feel about this. I would love to get a sense. I get there's going to be opinions everywhere. Let us hear yours. Okay. We'll talk to you guys on tomorrow's MK and until then, peace.