Eric Nicksick Lays Out Strategy for Francis Ngannou to Beat Tyson Fury

After Sean Strickland’s shocking win over Israel Adesanya last month, Xtreme Couture coach Eric Nicksick is plotting yet another massive upset.

Francis Ngannou left his previous gym, The MMA Factory in Paris, in 2020 for Xtreme Couture after his loss to Stipe Miocic in their first encounter. “The Predator” would go on to become UFC heavyweight champion under Nicksick’s tutelage.

Ngannou left the UFC earlier this year after failed contract negotiations and is now scheduled to fight heavyweight boxing champ Tyson Fury in a crossover match on Oct. 28 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. If the Cameroonian can beat arguably the greatest heavyweight pugilist of all time in his boxing debut, it certainly would go down in the history books.

Nicksick believes Ngannou has a fair shot. Nicksick noted how Deontay Wilder scored an almost fight-ending knockdown over “The Gypsy King” in their first encounter. According to the Xtreme Couture coach, it is unorthodox styles like Wilder’s which confuse technical boxers like Fury. Nicksick believes Ngannou can use the “booger” style to make Fury uncomfortable with unconventional stances and angles.

“It’s not a term of disrespect,” Nicksick told MMAFighting.com. “It’s just like when you watch two guys who are very, very technical fighters, they just are working on this sharpness of technique back and forth. Whereas, if you put a technical fighter against a booger, he’s not used to that erratic motion and stuff coming from different angles and stuff coming from different stances. Doing all this stuff that we do within MMA.

“I think it’s going to be key for us to not try to outbox Tyson Fury. I think if we get in a situation where it’s like, ‘Hey, we’re going to out-technique this guy,’ we’re going to be in trouble. It’s up to us to come up with creative ways on how to approach this.”