Decade-old photo misrepresented as showing champion boxer in hospital after recent fight

“Even if they pay Tyson 200 millionaire to fight Francis N'Gannou or any black man he will not accept again just one look at him in the hospital now (sic),” reads a post published on Facebook on October 29, 2023, and since shared more than 500 times.

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Screenshot showing the false post, taken on November 21, 2023

It shows a bald man in a hospital bed wearing an oxygen mask, as well as two images of Fury knocked down in the ring.

Some of the Facebook users commenting on the post seem to believe that the man in the hospital is Fury.

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Screenshots showing some of the comments

On October 28, 2023, Fury upheld his unbeaten record by outscoring Ngannou at the non-title fight dubbed “The Battle of the Baddest” in Riyadh.

The win didn’t come easily, as the world heavyweight champion had to overcome an early knockdown and was made to work hard by his opponent throughout the entire 10-round bout. In the end, Fury was declared the winner through a controversial split decision by the judges.

But the man in the oxygen mask in the photo is not Fury.

Dana White

A reverse image search found that the image has been online for a decade and shows the president of the mixed martial arts federation UFC, Dana White.

The search traced the photo to an article published on the website Prommanow.com on January 22, 2013 (archived here).

Prommanow told AFP Fact Check that “the photograph is of Dana White when he was hospitalised in 2013”.

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A side-by-side comparison of the image shared on social media (left) and a photo of Dana White from the AFP photo archive

White posted an image of himself with a doctor on X (formerly Twitter) in 2013 just before he underwent surgery (archived here).

White was treated (archived here) for Meniere’s disease – an inner ear disorder that affects hearing.

News channels reported here and here that White was diagnosed with the rare condition back in 2012 (archived here and here).

Ngannou switched to boxing this year after leaving the UFC as the reigning heavyweight champion (archive here).