Kamaru Usman gives ‘crazy’ Oleksandr Usyk vs. Francis Ngannou speech: He’s ‘the biggest puncher there is’

Kamaru Usman knows it’s a wild move, but he thinks Oleksandr Usyk should fight Francisco Ngannou next.

Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs) became undisputed heavyweight champion when he defeated Tyson Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) by split decision last Saturday at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Ngannou put in a valiant effort in his boxing debut against Fury, but his knockdown wasn’t enough to earn him victory. However, his second boxing fight against Anthony Joshua didn’t go as well. Ngannou was knocked out by Joshua in March.

Usyk holds two wins over Joshua and now Fury, but Usman thinks Ngannou has a specific attribute that would make things interesting.

“Skills pay the bills here,” Usman said in his “Pound 4 pounds” podcast with Henry Cejudo. “(Usyk) is not exactly the biggest heavyweight. He’s not the biggest puncher. But it’s his skills that pay the bills. I would love to – and I know it’s crazy, and I know everyone is going to try to say something about it – but I would love to see him fight a guy like Francis Ngannou, just for the simple fact that, yeah, I want to see the skill level. here.

“Yeah, he taught the other guys. But Francis is the biggest puncher there is. I want to see how Oleksandr Usyk can take down a guy like that, take him to school and really show the skills required in boxing. It’s not just about being able to throw a hard punch. So that’s the only reason I would like to see it. Francis coming out of this loss is, of course, not a good account of himself. He beat everyone.”

Fury thought he did enough to beat Usyk. He plans to exercise the contract’s rematch clause, making Usman’s idea highly unlikely.

This story originally appeared on MMA Junkie