Fournier insists Paul and Fury both beat KSI – who has 'no power'
EXCLUSIVE: Joe Fournier insists Tommy Fury and Jake Paul would both beat KSI as he claims the YouTuber ‘has no power’… while he maintains the elbow WAS deliberate and reveals dirty tactics leading up to the fight
- Joe Fournier believes KSI would be well beaten by Jake Paul and Tommy Fury
- KSI knocked out Fournier with an illegal elbow with the fight ruled a no decision
- Fournier is now pushing for the rematch and maintains the shot was deliberate
Joe Fournier believes KSI would be beaten by both Jake Paul and Tommy Fury, as he maintains the YouTuber-turned-boxer deliberately elbowed him after realising the stoppage would not otherwise come in their showdown.
The 40-year-old, a 9-0 professional who has shared the ring with David Haye in an exhibition back in 2021, appeared to have been emphatically stopped by KSI in the second round of their eagerly-aniticpated Misfits Boxing clash earlier in May.
But replays showed the decisive blow was an illegal elbow, with the officials – the Professional Boxing Association – subsequently ruling the bout a ‘no decision’. KSI was judged not to have deliberately thrown an illegal shot, however, and was therefore not disqualified.
Fournier, who visited the Daily Mail office to discuss the result, revealed he was left unimpressed both by his opponent’s conduct outside of the ring and his ability inside of it, insisting Tommy Fury – who squared up to KSI immediately after the fight – would comfortably beat the YouTuber.
‘No, he can’t win that fight – Tommy Fury beats him all day long,’ Fournier told Mail Sport. ‘Fury is a real boxer. People talk about Love Island and might take the p*** out of him, but I think Jake Paul is better than KSI – and Tommy beat Jake Paul!
Joe Fournier visited the Daily Mail office as he discussed his fight with KSI earlier in the month
Fournier was knocked out by an illegal elbow with the bout later changed to a ‘no decision’
‘I think Jake Paul should actually be proud of his performance even though he didn’t win.
‘In six years, he caught up with a professional boxer from a great boxing family. Tommy’s dad, Peter Fury, knows what he’s talking about; he’s not some dummy. He’s been around boxing all his life. Fury beats KSI and does it comfortably.’
KSI and Fury have now entered negotiations and are expected to fight later this year. Fournier’s fight contract did include a rematch clause should the contest end a no-decision, but it can only be enforced by KSI – which he has stated he doesn’t intend to do.
Fournier remains adamant he would emerge victorious in a rematch, particularly if he was allowed to fight at 185lbs rather than a depleted 180lbs. And while he admits KSI did have one genuiely impressive quality, overall he wasn’t blown away.
‘We thought he’d be very strong, but he turned out not to be that strong at all,’ Fournier explained. ‘He doesn’t punch hard.
‘He was very fast; he’s way faster than a lot of professional boxers I’ve been in with. He actually has tremendous speed, but he has no punch power. He hit me with a bowling ball right hand with 10 ounce gloves on. I should’ve been looking up at the sky.
‘You take any top 25 fighter in the light-heavyweight division, they hit you like that and it’s game over. Even a middleweight, a Gennady Golovkin.’
He continued: ‘We knew he’d be awkward, but in the second round I started getting my timing. I got a lot of confidence from the first round, because I realised he doesn’t have any power. The guy’s been knocking out kids and YouTubers, but I wasn’t marked up at all. There’s no power there.’
Fournier insists he was unimpressed by KSI’s punch power, though admitting he was fast
The 40-year-old says Jake Paul (L) and Tommy Fury (R) would beat the YouTuber-turned-boxer
KSI and Fury had to be separated as they clashed in the ring following the Fournier fight
KSI’s side of the story is, of course, different. The multi-skilled social media star insists he was comfortably winning the fight and believes that ‘bowling ball right hand’ had Fournier badly hurt and in trouble.
The YouTuber also questions why, having had success early on, he would throw away his opportunity to claim a victory over a professional boxer by opting for a blatantly illegal shot. He maintains it was anything but deliberate.
But Fournier doesn’t buy it. Rather, he believes KSI realised his best shot hadn’t resulted in the knockout he wanted, and therefore moved on to Plan B.
‘My true belief is that if you can’t knock someone out, and he knew that – you know it as a boxer when you hit someone flush on the chin and he’s still there – you panic a bit,’ Fournier explained.
‘You know at some point he’s going to start walking me down. It creates a bit of anxiety when you’re a novice. And I think they practiced, when in doubt, throw the elbow. Underhook to lift you into it, and throw the elbow. I think that’s what happened.
‘I saw the punch go past me, and I relaxed. Next thing I know, it’s the count of four, so I was out until then. I thought, “F***ing hell, he’s fast. How the hell did that left hook come back round and hit me?”
‘But I’d felt there wasn’t a punch, so I was thinking did he headbutt me? Six, seven, eight, I’m gathering my thoughts and I think I can make the count. By 10, I’m thinking, nah, that wasn’t a punch. I turn to my coach and he tells me, “He just elbowed you!”
‘I went back to the changing room, and everyone was screaming elbow and going mental. I could hear it all the way back while he was doing his push-ups. The mad thing, for me, is that he’s just elbowed me, he’s obviously greased the judges – he pays them essentially, so they’re doing anything he wants. There’s no way they all missed it, the whole world saw it. And they’re celebrating? Celebrating cheating?’
Fournier maintains he thinks KSI deliberately threw the elbow after failing to knock him out
The Brit reveals he heard cries of ‘elbow’ as he made his way back to his dressing room
Fournier wasn’t left to dwell on what he believed to be a major injustice for too long. The General Secretary of the PBA, according to Fournier, swiftly entered his dressing room and told him the fight would be changed to a no-decision if he appealed.
The 40-year-old maintains the decision was the wrong one. ‘If this was a British Boxing Board fight, it would be a disqualification,’ he says. But while it’s the finishing shot that will be remembered, Fournier insits even before the fight KSI and his team were trying to uneven the playing field.
‘The fight was originally agreed at 185lbs back in January, but they cut that back to 180lbs, which I haven’t fought at for seven or eight years,’ he said. ‘They delayed the fight being agreed, despite knowing they were going to fight me.
‘They sent camera crews to film me, but obviously he owns to the content of the camera crew. So he could obviously watch me training and see everything you’re doing. They had them there for about five days, and it’s his content! He owns it!
Fournier reveals that his training for the fight was disrupted by filming and media demands
‘So for five days you can’t really train properly. Then you’ve got all the obligations for media. They knew I was training in Miami; I could have joined over zoom, but they made me fly back to England in the contract. There wasn’t any time where I could just train for more than four weeks at a time. They do all those games.
‘Even on fight week, we weighed in and then they had a rehydration weigh-in, like we’re fighting for an IBF world title. It was like, what the f***? It’s a six-rounder against a YouTuber. I got there 10 minutes early and they made me wait the 10 minutes! Every tiny advantage they would take.’
For now, despite disagreeing with the eventual fight result, it’s one Fournier says he can live with. Yet, the 40-year-old is longing for a rematch – even if it doesn’t happen next – and insists he would emerge victorious.
But if a second fight between the pair can’t be arranged, there’s another man who interests him greatly: Jake Paul.
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