Francis Ngannou has revealed that he had a loss of memory after he was knocked down by Anthony Joshua in their non-title bout staged in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia this month.
Ngannaou, a former heavyweight UFC fighter, was having his second boxing bout and he was expected to give Joshua a tough fight after stretching Tyson Fury in the first outing. But Joshua made light work of the bout as he knocked down the Cameroonian-born Ngannou in the second round. Joshua in the first round had dropped Ngannou in the first round with a hard right hand and that rocked Ngannou.
Speaking during an interview on The MMA Hour Ngannou revealed: “My memory and my vision kept going,” Ngannou said.
“I don’t remember when I came back from the stool to go to the second round.
“From the stool, in between rounds, I wasn’t there anymore. Some days are just not your day and you can’t explain what happened. It was quite weird.”
Ngannou however, has no regrets and he intends to remain in boxing. In two fights he has made more money than he ever made in his MMA fights. From Joshua fight alone he made $20m; the biggest he made during his MMA fight was $500,000.
“I do not have any regrets,” Ngannou asserted.
“Now that I lost the fight, we can say anything that I’ve done wrong.
“We worked on everything, and everything was OK. This was all my choice [going southpaw]. Even in southpaw, my defense is more sharp than orthodox.
“In the southpaw, to take a hit from the right back hand, this is something that in sparring never happened, and I’ve been there so many times practicing. With the same southpaw, I think we basically won the fight against Tyson.”
