Francis Ngannou reacts to Oleksandr Usyk’s championship rematch win over Tyson Fury

Francis Ngannou doesn’t entirely agree with the scorecards of Oleksandr Usyk vs. Tyson Fury 2.

Usyk retained his WBC, WBA and WBO world heavyweight titles when he defeated Fury by unanimous decision Saturday in Saudi Arabia. Usyk defeated Fury a second time after winning a split-decision in their first meeting seven months ago.

Ngannou is OK with Usyk getting his hand raised, but not as definitively as the scorecards reflected.

“The fight was pretty close. I would have scored the fight closer than that,” Ngannou said in an interview with Pro Boxing Fans. “Maybe Usyk could have still won. I mean, at the end of the fight, I wasn’t sure that anybody was a winner because anybody could have been a winner. From my scorecard, it was closer than that.”

All three judges scored it 116-112 for Usyk, but the AI scorecard had it 118-112 for Usyk, which Ngannou heavily disagrees with.

“No, no – AI might be intelligent, but AI doesn’t understand the sport properly,” Ngannou said. “It’s a man sport, it’s not a machine sport. I think AI, regardless of everything, is still a machine that operates automatically and scores based on some (things it can’t see). I don’t think AI has all the specific or the data to score a boxing match.”

Ngannou’s debut boxing match came in a controversial decision loss to Fury in October 2023, In his second appearance in the ring “The Predator” was finished by Anthony Joshua in a Round 2 knockout loss in March.

As for what’s next in boxing, Ngannou is still interested in avenging his loss to Fury.

“What I want to see now is Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou,” Ngannou said. “That’s all what matters to me.”