Almost two weeks have passed since Francis Ngannou emphatically lost to Anthony Joshua in a ten-round bout yet there seems to be no stopping Ngannou when it comes to searching for an explanation to why he lost. Last week, Ngannou alluded to his “sleepiness” being the cause for his loss to Joshua, and has now seemingly doubled-down that there was something wrong as he came with another potential excuse: arriving too late in the arena. Despite the optics making Ngannou appear bitter or incapable of perceiving his loss, certain revelations he revealed has put a stamp of mystery and intrigue on the organizers of the March 8th event; the General Entertainment Authority (GEA) headed by Saudi minister Turki Al-Sheikh.
On March 8th, Francis Ngannou (0-2, 0 KO’s) suffered a devastating loss to Anthony Joshua (28-0, 25 KO’s) that saw him get knocked out cold in the second round of their heavyweight non-title bout. While the gulf in experience and skill between the two fighters would have always made beating Joshua a hard task for the Cameroonian, Ngannou went on to highlight several odd circumstances that suggested a possible conspiracy by the Saudi organizers were being perpetrated on him .
“What I think what happened is that they took me to the arena very early. Like my pickup time was 23:30 to go to the arena, and then when we got to the arena they told us we were scheduled [to fight] around 01:45 AM,” Ngannou told sports reporter Ariel Helwani.
“Around 1 AM, they came to the locker [room] and then [told me] Joshua still had not arrived, or he was arriving. And I’m like, we’re fighting at the same time, how come I have a pickup time? We received a schedule, an email, and for some reason I was there at least two hours before him [Anthony Joshua].
“I could’ve just stayed home. Even during the week, we were going to places and had to wait, and we were complaining―like they do this type of trick to get you tired. I was cool, I’m like, ‘bro, it’s okay’. I didn’t know how important that [all] was until the fight day when I had to get there like two hours before.“
The only plausible explanations for Francis Ngannou’s allegations of being sabotaged boils down to the General Entertainment Authority who―under the leadership of its chairman Turki Al-Sheikh―has organized some of the most eye-catching boxing bouts in recent history over just the past six months. While Ngannou did not explicitly name the organization or its chairman, only they had the motive and the means to conduct an operation centering around sabotaging Ngannou prior to the fight.
As stated in a previous article, Turki Al-Sheikh had openly declared his wish to see Anthony Joshua come out on top against Francis Ngannou for the sake of boxing; putting the Saudi Arabian government official at the forefront of what might have been intentional sabotage.
The implications of such an operation are wide-reaching and destructive to the sport of boxing, which despite its prevalent corruption had been seemingly moving in the right direction under the direction Al-Sheikh who has thus far managed to organize a highly-lauded fight card comprised out of mostly top heavyweights, and is also set to host the Usyk-Fury undisputed heavyweight bout in May.
However, Ngannou’s recent revelations have now brought GEA under a scope of suspicion as the legitimacy of the result of the Joshua-Ngannou match is facing heavy scrutiny. Legally-speaking, there might even be grounds for Ngannou to make some headway if he has any evidence that even slightly points out towards intentional sabotage.
While Francis Ngannou had come under scrutiny himself for saying he had been “sleepy” prior to facing Anthony Joshua on March 8th, the disclosure of what transpired during the week before his fight with the British heavyweight has now exposed a myriad of hidden issues that is unfortunately typical of boxing; with the sport being no stranger to corruption in the slightest.
Alternatively, Francis Ngannou could merely be misinterpreting events due to having been knocked out, and there have been cases of brain damage resulting in individuals perceiving certain experiences differently than it happened.
This sentiment was echoed by Matchroom chairman Eddie Hearn who posted a message on Instagram in response to Francis Ngannou’s claims.
“I’m not sure he [Francis Ngannou] has come round yet.” Hearn stated.
