World heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury reflected on his training with UFC legend Nick Diaz yesterday as he ponders his next steps.
Fury insists that he is retired from professional boxing, and will only come back for big money exhibition bouts or a crossover fight with the UFC world champion Francis Ngannou. The ruleset for that Ngannou fight has yet to be confirmed, but the pair both seem interested in something that involves 4oz MMA gloves as opposed to 10oz boxing ones.
And when Diaz took to social media yesterday to show footage of a training session he did with Fury last year, the Brit responded by noting how much fun he'd had working on the ground game. Diaz and his brother Nate are both jiu-jitsu experts, and he likely showed Fury the ropes during a gym session.
In a comment under the elder Diaz brother's post, Fury said, "Nice bit of rolling around the mat". It comes after the boxing champion's close friend and former training partner Tom Aspinall suggested that his bout with Ngannou should happen with mixed-rules, where they start with straight boxing and every round that Ngannou survives he is given another new skill to use such as kicking.
Fury would have a monstrous disadvantage in a standard MMA fight against Ngannou, as evidenced by boxers previously coming into the sport late in their career. James Toney was famously submitted within seconds by Randy Couture in their UFC fight as just one example.
But on the other hand, Ngannou would face a near insurmountable task if he took on Fury within the Queensberry rules, even with smaller gloves. He has never boxed as a professional before, and despite being known for his vicious punching power, he would struggle to get near Fury on the feet.
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So Aspinall believes that the fight should be contested over five rounds of five minutes, as opposed to the standard 12 rounds of three in boxing. And to raise the stakes, he feels that for each round added, Ngannou should be allowed a new tool such as kicking or punching in the clinch.
He told Sky Sports the fight must have “Little gloves, for sure, and five-minute rounds, that would definitely make it a little bit even - I think they should do first round boxing only. Second round, maybe, boxing and low kicks. And third round, I don’t know, boxing, low kicks, and clinching. I think something like that would make it a bit more even.
“I’ve grappled with him [Fury] before. He’s interested in it. So, I know he’s done bits of grappling, bits of kicks, and all that. He was down in our gym training with Darren Till before, doing kicks on the pads and all that stuff. So, he’s definitely got interest in it. I don’t know. I’d love to see it, though.”
