The exhibition match between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou, set to occur on October 28th, is still being promoted and was most recently aided by a commercial featuring Portuguese association football star Cristiano Ronaldo.
In the fifteen-second clip, Cristiano Ronaldo can be seen being asked what he thinks of Francis Ngannou’s chances against WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury.
“Next question,” was Ronaldo’s response to one of the reporter’s questions.
Though the commercial is clearly an acted skit, Cristiano Ronaldo’s two-word reply firmly conveyed the ridiculousness of the question posed to him. More importantly, it captured the essence of the event when Ronaldo waved away the question directed at him — which can be interpreted as the event itself being too unimportant to be bothered with.
The event between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou on the 28th of October in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, will be supported by an undercard of professional bouts. This includes a heavyweight bout between British heavyweight champion Fabio Wardley (16-0, 15 KO’s) and British contender David Adeleye (12-0, 11 KO’s).
The match between Fury and Ngannou itself is officially said to be a professional bout, and set for ten rounds with normal boxing rules. However, the wide disparity in skill between the two competitors, given Ngannou’s complete lack of professional boxing experience, has led to the main event being considered more of an exhibition.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s response reflected the essential pointlessness of the main event. Not only does it not involve Tyson Fury defending his WBC heavyweight title, but his opponent Francis Ngannou — though a former MMA heavyweight champion — faces little real chance of beating Fury, which turns their match into a pretense of a boxing bout.
Regardless, there does seem to be interest in the event, particularly the heated confrontation between Wardley and Adeleye during the introductory press conference for the boxing event.
The animosity between these two prevalent British heavyweights is likely to draw enough attention to make the event noteworthy, even with the main event between Fury and Ngannou seems to be falsification of what constitutes as a boxing match.
