The appearance of Francis Ngannou in the ring after Tyson Fury defeated Dillian Whyte last weekend had fans discussing the heavyweight boxing world champion’s skill in mixed martial arts. Their potential bout is currently the hot topic and is one of the most anticipated matches for next year.
An old video of ‘The Gypsy King’ training MMA has resurfaced across the digital platforms. In the video, Tyson Fury can be seen training with UFC middleweight contender Darren Till.
This video is particularly pertinent at the moment because the two of them have one thing in common – and it’s not their love of tea. Both Tyson Fury and Darren Till have close ties to Daniel Kinehan. Kinehan is founder of MTK Global – the company that promoted Tyson Fury events and managed Darren Till’s career up until last week when they unceremoniously dumped their athletes via a website notice.
Fury was doing some pad work by viciously throwing punches at Darren Till, who was holding the pad. The 33-year-old also worked on his kicks and elbows. The video was from November 2019 and resurfaced when Fury announced a hybrid match against Francis Ngannou next year.
Darren Till appeared on BT Sport for a chat. During the interview, Darren Till was asked about the context of the video. ‘The Gorilla’ explained that he was just training with Fury and had some talks with him.
“We done a hard hour [of training], I swear we done a hard hour. Afterwards he was chatting to me, obviously everyone knows the mental side of things that he went through, I swear that guy’s got a rock-solid mentality. Like an unbelievable mentality. I thought mine was strong. He gave me, like when I step back I say to John, “The stuff that comes out of his mouth is next level.” Darren Till said.
With his recent victory, Tyson Fury successfully retained the WBC and The Ring heavyweight titles. He also remained undefeated with a total of 32 wins and one draw. Before having a big boxing event with Francis Ngannou, Fury will likely have to do a rematch with Anthony Joshua in December.