Francis Ngannou blames Anthony Joshua loss on \u201cweird\u201d pre-fight schedule Associated PressFrancis Ngannou suffered a brutal second-round knockout at the hands of Anthony Joshua. He\u2019s now blaming a \u201cweird\u201d pre-fight schedule for his loss. Ngannou made his boxing debut last October against world champion Tyson Fury. To the surprise of many boxing fans, the MMA star held his own with Fury. Ngannou lost the contest via a controversial judge\u2019s decision but parlayed that success into a bout with champion-level boxer Anthony Joshua. Joshua sent Ngannou to the mat three times, including the final blow in the second round. The former UFC champion blames a \u201cweird\u201d lead-up to the fight for his poor showing. Ngannou blames early pickup time for Joshua loss According to Ngannou, his pickup time to head to the arena was 10:30 PM, but the start time for the fight wasn\u2019t until 1:45 AM. In an interview with Ariel Helwani, Ngannou revealed that Joshua did not arrive at the arena until hours after he did. \u201cI was there at least two hours before him. I could have just stayed home,\u201d Ngannou said. \u201cI was in the locker room waiting for four-and-a-half hours. Even warming up and sweating, but still getting tired. I\u2019m sweating, and I feel like I\u2019m asleep. \u201cWhen the fight started, I was never there. I took the first punch; I was awake but didn\u2019t really feel it. \u201cI feel myself down [on the canvas], and I\u2019m like, \u2018Man, what\u2019s going on?\u2019 And then, I\u2019m being counted out. Ngannou knew that fighting in Saudi Arabia would throw off his internal clock, thanks to his previous fighting experience in Riyadh. However, according to the MMA-star-turned-boxer, it was the \u201cweird\u201d pickup time that he didn\u2019t account for. Some boxing fans are calling it an excuse to justify losing to Joshua. Others are joining Ngannou in blaming the disparity in pickup times for his loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Francis Ngannou blames Anthony Joshua loss on \u201cweird\u201d pre-fight schedule Associated PressFrancis Ngannou suffered a brutal second-round knockout at the hands of Anthony Joshua. He\u2019s now blaming a \u201cweird\u201d pre-fight schedule for his loss. Ngannou made his boxing debut last October against world champion Tyson Fury. To the surprise of many boxing fans, the MMA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}