Tyson Fury controversially defeated Francis Ngannou in Saudi Arabia

Andy Murray has offered a dim view of Tyson Fury’s crossover bout with former UFC champion Francis Ngannou, which saw the Gypsy King awarded a controversial split decision victory. Fury, who holds the WBC heavyweight title, looked a shadow of his usual self over the course of the fight and was knocked down by his novice opponent in the third round.

Many viewers felt that Ngannou was robbed of a seismic victory which would have gone down as one of the biggest shocks in professional boxing history. Murray was among those to slam the event on X, formerly Twitter, as he branded the spectacle a ‘bad look for boxing’ after Fury was taken the distance before edging the fight on the scorecards.

Murray wrote: “How many points would the world No 1 squash player win vs the world No 1 tennis player in a tennis match and vice versa? I’m thinking close to zero for both… bad look for boxing.”

Fury was widely accused of not taking Ngannou seriously after the fight, with the 35-year-old struggling to hurt his opponent throughout the 10-round contest. He threw more punches overall but lacked quality from the outset and did little to live up to his hard-earned reputation as the greatest heavyweight boxer of his era.

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Ngannou suggested that he would be open to a rematch in his post-fight interview, with the MMA legend insisting that he was proud of his performance against Fury in spite of the result. He said: “We can run it back again and I’m sure I will get better. This was my first boxing match. It was a great experience.

“I’m not giving any excuse. I know I came up short, but I’m going to go back and work harder with a little more experience and a little more feeling of the game and I will come back even stronger. At first, I was a little nervous. This is a new sport that I never did. Now I know I can do this s***, so get ready!”

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Fury, meanwhile, later admitted that he was wholly to blame for his lacklustre performance after getting ‘a little bit greedy’ when it came to facing Ngannou, who was making his professional boxing debut.

“I just got a little bit greedy, hit him with a one-two down the pipe, clean, and I went to jump back in for another one-two and he got me on the way out,” he told iFL TV. “There’s no who to blame. Blame me. There’s no blame the trainer, blame the manager, blame the cutman. Blame me if you’re gonna blame anybody.

“It was what it was. It’s the fight game, not tap dancing. You go in there and have a fight, there are no excuses. You’re in there on the night. I did the best I could, that’s it. It was a tough fight, he was a good, game man.”

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