18 January 2024 , 09:50
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Boxing legend Lennox Lewis has questioned whether Anthony Joshua will deserve a shot at the undisputed crown if he beats Francis Ngannou.
Joshua will take on the former UFC heavyweight champion in Saudi Arabia in March, less than three months after stopping Otto Wallin in the Middle East. A month earlier, Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk will have clashed to crown the division's first undisputed champion since Lewis in 1999.
The two winners could then meet, potentially handing Joshua an unexpected shot at becoming the best heavyweight on the planet. But Lewis doubts whether the Brit will have earned the opportunity.
"OK, Eddie Hearn, I know this is the promoter in you speaking, so I’ll break it down like the boxing fan I am," he wrote on social media. "If AJ beats Ngannou, which he should, does that elevate him to a shot at undisputed? Beating Wallin and Ngannou? There’s a much better case for the winner of Joseph Parker vs Zhilei Zhang.
"And if AJ gets through Ngannou, and Usyk wins undisputed, is the appetite for Usyk vs Joshua 3 out there? If Fury becomes undisputed, the man says he’s vacating all belts but the WBC and Ring so Fury in effect becomes last undisputed until someone else can Thanos them back together. I still want to see AJ fight Fury and Wilder… those are big fights. But like I told Mike Tyson, if you keep fighting guys like Lou Savarese, you will NEVER be ready for me."
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Joshua, meanwhile, expects an “explosive” encounter when he takes on Ngannou. Ex-UFC fighter Ngannou, who is now contracted to the Professional Fighters League, made his professional boxing debut against Fury in October and only narrowly missed out on an unlikely victory, dropping the WBC heavyweight champion in the third round.
“He brings two arms, a body, but his mind is different to everyone else. In terms of his frame and make-up I’ve seen people like him many times before,” Joshua said at a press conference on Monday evening to announce the ‘Knockout Chaos’ show in Riyadh.
On his thoughts when the Ngannou fight was offered, Joshua added: “No problem. Every fight leads to somewhere, so this fight is my everything and we will see where it leads me. “My main focus is Ngannou and getting through an intense training camp. I have got to take his mind and his spirit, it will be explosive. We can both trade and it will be a good fight.”
Joshua won all three of his fights in 2023 as he bids to return to the top of the heavyweight division, but Ngannou is determined to derail that ambition. Ngannou said: “I’m going to come as an underdog to win the fight. I will get this done, I’m just a beginner.
“I will come out better and that’s how I see things. I prepared for a hard fight. The Fury fight is in the past and I will take this more serious than before because there’s more on the line, the undisputed. I will do something nobody has done before and I have the tools to do that. It will not be an easy fight, but a possible one (to win)."