Nine months after former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou shocked the world by almost beating Tyson Fury in his professional boxing debut, Joe Rogan has said he believes that his split-decision loss was a fix.
“I thought he (Francis Ngannou) won that fight,” Rogan said on his Joe Rogan Experience podcast. “But, you know, they were setting up that (Oleksandr) Usyk fight. They were not going to let – yeah, it just seemed like the fix was in a little bit.
“It was close enough that they could pull it off and you go, ‘Okay maybe, maybe you can see (Fury) winning that,’ but I don’t think so, I thought Francis won it, a lot of people thought Francis won it.”
Even so, Rogan still thinks it was a good idea for Ngannou to take the fight, even if he was robbed of the chance to claim a victory that would have went down as one of the biggest upsets in combat sports history.
“I’m happy that he went and got paid, I’m happy that he got that money for the Tyson Fury fight because everyone was dismissing it, Dana (White) was dismissing it and then he drops Tyson Fury and in a lot of people’s eyes, won the fight.
“And then he gets a big payday against Joshua, I’m happy that he made money, but I wish he would’ve made that money in the UFC.”
