Anatoly Malykhin takes a dig at Francis Ngannou's boxing on Instagram

Anatoly Malykhin is currently working on his boxing skills and it seems to have gotten him in the mood to comment on other people’s boxing as well.

In his Instagram stories, ‘Sladkiy’ re-posted a story of his coach, John Hutchinson. They seemed to be watching a video of UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou. Hutchinson tagged Malykhin on a comment that said:

“He slow as 🐌”

Screenshot from Malykhin's Instagram story

Ngannou is known for his heavy punches, which helped him stop five of his last six opponents. In UFC 270, he surprisingly leaned on his wrestling game to gut out a unanimous decision win against Ciryl Gane to defend his world title.

The hulking Cameroonian later revealed that he was dealing with a knee injury that limited his performance. If Ngannou’s pad session was taken recently, it could be that he was not in his best shape at the time.

However, it won’t be surprising to know that Anatoly Malykhin actually believes that Ngannou is “slow” since the ONE heavyweight contender has also made a career out of knocking people out with his punches.

Malykhin is undefeated in 10 matches, winning his last four bouts using his dangerous punches.

With Ngannou’s current contract dispute and his expressed desire to compete in boxing, could there be an opportunity for the Cameroonian to take his talents to Asia to test his boxing skills against Malykhin in the future?

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Anatoly Malykhin honing his boxing skills in Phuket, Thailand

Anatoly Malykhin is busy preparing for his upcoming bout at ONE: Bad Blood against fellow undefeated beast, Kirill Grishenko.

From coach John Hutchinson and Malykhin’s own Instagram pages, it looks like they have been in training in Thailand since December.

The heavyweight clash with Grishenko was originally scheduled to take place at ONE: Only the Brave on January 28, but has since been moved to the February 11 event.

The stakes are high in this co-main event bout. Not only will one come out with his first professional MMA loss, the winner will also be crowned as the interim ONE heavyweight world champion.

Current ONE heavyweight world champion Arjan Bhullar has not defended his gold since winning it in April 2021. ONE chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong has blamed Bhullar’s management for stalling negotiations, which led to an interim world title being created.

Should Bhullar return to unify the belts, either heavyweight star will be a worthy opponent for the first world champion of Indian descent.