‘I’ll Be Ready’

Ngannou is trying to draw Fury’s attention away from Jon Jones and back on himself as ‘The Gypsy King’ prepares his schedule for the second half of 2023.

Tyson Fury doesn’t have an opponent locked in for the coming months, but there have been a lot of names being thrown around as possibilities. One name that’s surprisingly absent is former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou.

Fury and Ngannou looked like they were on a collision course back in 2022. The two were regularly sparring over social media, and then Fury invited Ngannou into the ring with him after “The Gypsy King” beat Dillian Whyte to hype up a showdown. We don’t know what happened after that to change things — perhaps the UFC sent Fury a letter reminding him what ‘tortuous interference’ means — but Tyson has stopped talking about the fight entirely since then.

Ngannou is now a free agent as far as boxing goes, but he can’t get any of the top heavyweights to sign up for a big money brawl. Anthony Joshua has called the fight a gimmick. Deontay Wilder may be getting paid by Saudi Arabia to sit out until December to fight Joshua. And Tyson Fury is currently beefing with the UFC over Jon Jones?

“The Predator” recently took to Twitter to retweet Jake Paul’s accusation that all this Fury vs. Jones talk is part of a plan by Dana White to distract people from Francis Ngannou’s recent signing with the PFL. And look … we’re sympathetic to Ngannou and all the bulls— he was and still is put through by White. But that sounds like a stretch. Then Francis followed it up with another challenge to Fury.

“Anyway … I’ll be ready Tyson Fury,” he wrote over a video where he’s working a speedbag. “Stop talking, Tyson, and come try. I’m already doing you a favor using your gloves and your rules because your limited skill set.”

Will this capture Fury’s attention? We have our doubts. Something happened that made “The Gypsy King” move on from the Ngannou fight, and we’d love to know what it is. Without knowing, it’s impossible to guess what might make Fury come back around. But a few lukewarm tweets from Ngannou ain’t gonna cut it.