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UFC legend Rashad Evans has made an extremely bold prediction about Francis Ngannou ahead of his monstrous fight against Anthony Joshua.
Ngannou took Tyson Fury the distance in his boxing debut last year after leaving the UFC as the promotion's heavyweight champion.
He dropped the WBC title holder en route to losing a controversial decision on the judges' scorecards.
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Ngannou will get another crack at one of the other big players in the heavyweight division as he faces Joshua on March 8.
Joshua, who used to hold the world heavyweight titles before surrendering them to Oleksandr Usyk in 2021, is on a three-fight winning streak, having suffered back-to-back defeats to the undefeated Ukrainian star.
'AJ' returned to the win column after beating Jermaine Franklin before stopping Robert Helenius.
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And he destroyed Otto Wallin on the 'Day of Reckoning' card in his last outing in a masterful performance as he seemed to roll back the years.
The Brit welcomes the ex-MMA star back to the ring, with former UFC light-heavyweight champion Evans backing Ngannou to become the world heavyweight champion in boxing.
"I mean, it's hard for me to put anything past Francis, man. That performance and now he's gonna be fighting Anthony Joshua," he told Give Me Sport.
"I mean, I think he's gonna do it. I made a prediction at the end of [2023] and I said: 'I think that Francis Ngannou is gonna be a heavyweight boxing champ by the end of the year'."
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Even though the former UFC king didn't beat Fury, he shocked the boxing world with his showing against arguably the best fighter in the division and garnered huge praise.
Just months after troubling the self-proclaimed 'Gypsy King', he will look to get off the mark in the boxing ranks when he takes on Joshua next month.
Topics: UFC, Francis Ngannou, Anthony Joshua
Nasir Jabbar