Former world champion Shawn Porter was impressed with the professional boxing debut by MMA veteran Francis Ngannou, who fought the fight of his life against WBC king Tyson Fury last month in Saudi Arabia.

In what was predicted to play out as a mismatch, Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs) won a close ten round split decision in the non-title contest.

"He underperformed," Porter said about Fury to TMZ. "He wasn't prepared for this fight."

Ngannou dropped Fury in the third round and made it very competitive for the entire bout.

However, Porter felt Ngannou was lacking the necessary skills to pull out enough scoring rounds to secure a victory - especially during rounds when there wasn't enough action taking place.

Porter could see Ngannou, with his size and power, giving a lot of heavyweights problems.

"Unfortunately, even though Ngannou showed himself, again, to be very strong, showed himself to be prepared for this fight, he also showed he does not have enough boxing mechanics to win enough rounds to beat Tyson Fury," Porter said to TMZ.

"His lack of experience showed because there were rounds where he essentially did zero to win those rounds. If he's able to find a pace, he's gonna get some heavyweight fighters some trouble because he's big enough to fight there, he showed he's strong enough to fight there and the guy is athletic. He got skills!"

Ngannou, 37-years-old, is planning to continue his run boxing and also plans to restart his MMA career. Earlier this year, Ngannou signed a long-term deal with MMA organization PFL. He plans to fight twice in 2024 - possibly one fight in MMA and one in boxing - but, even PFL officials admit there are very few 'big fight' options for Ngannou in MMA.