By now you have heard about the name Francis Ngannou, ‘The Predator’. Not a lot of people know him because he is a Mixed Martial Art (MMA) star – MMA is a full-contact combat sport which includes fighting styles from boxing, wrestling, Judo, and other fighting styles from around the world. It is an industry which has not gotten the exposure boxing has. So stars from there may not be as popular compared to boxing stars. But gradually they are getting there.
Francis Ngannou was a MMA star who made a name for himself because of his knockout power in the sport, to the extent he was ranked the hardest puncher in the world. He knocked out his opponents with ease which was scary to watch and any one who fought him tried to avoid his punches whether by the right or left hand.
I, I mean ‘we’, love stories of villains and the story of ‘grass to grace’ and all the beauty around it. Like how it is often said in the streets ‘started from the bottom now we’re here’. The singer Drake made a big hit from a song he made from that quote. Stories like that sell: From nothing to something; they are beautiful and inspirational.
About three years ago he was a Ultimate Fighter Championship (UFC – and MMA league headed by Dana White) Heavyweight Champion with a record of 17 wins, 3 loses. Would you imagine a knockout star having a loss? But that is how strange the fighting game is, even the best lose. And just after one title defence, Francis Ngannou abandoned his UFC title due to an unfair contract per his interest in pursuing a boxing career. Something a lot of people claimed he was going to fail at. One of those people is Dana White, the CEO of UFC and I am sure he would be excited by now from Ngannou’s recent bout with Anthony Joshua. It is so sad to watch the match again if you have been a Francis Ngannou supporter for a while. It was that bad!
However, before that performance with Anthony Joshua, we saw an impressive Francis Ngannou against Tyson Fury back in October 2023. Francis Ngannou’s first fight after leaving the UFC in January 2022. Even though some of us were happy Francis Ngannou secured that fight with Fury, we didn’t know what to expect. Eventually, we were happy by what we saw and how he made a case for himself in the boxing world and how many from the MMA world were excited by his performance.
For the supporters of Francis Ngannou, we were certain that he was going to walk through a lot of the boxing heavyweights and eventually win himself a title and he would finally cement himself as the ‘Baddest’ fighter there has ever been in the world. For him to win a title at UFC and move on to win a title in boxing. No one has ever done that and some of us wanted that story written now. The performance he put up against Tyson Fury was impressive for someone in his or her first professional boxing match at age 37!
Before all of this, what you may be interested in knowing is that Francis Ngannou was about 25 years old when he left Cameroon to realise his dreams of being a boxer or find greener pastures. Before then he had no professional Boxing training even though he had the zeal and he trained himself. He worked in a sand mine from when he was a little boy. His father was a street fighter, so Ngannou has the fighting genes in him already by direct heredity.
According to Francis, he didn’t know where he was going when he left Cameroon, he was just going where his spirit led him, but anywhere outside Africa. He travelled mostly by road through the desert of North Africa and this journey was gruesome where he saw things he would not want to experience again. When he left Cameroon he travelled long and had to stop in Morocco, where he spent more than 12 months before getting into Spain. He was held there for some months when he thought he had a chance to go to Germany.But he thought he would try his chance in France. In France, that was when everything for him started.
In France, he was looking out for opportunities to box or start his Boxing career, he got a chance to start in a gym but there was no breakthrough until he was introduced to Mixed Martial Art (MMA). MMA was new to him but he saw it as an opportunity to launch himself into Boxing and that is exactly what he has done today. So during his UFC-MMA days the story of his struggles throughout his life was a motivating factor and a selling proposition in everything he did.
Anytime one hears of Francis Ngannou, the first thing we remember is that little boy who worked in the sand mines of Cameroon. Who toiled his way through gruesome travelling experiences on the deserts, through the Mediterranean Sea and how he was deported and yet did not give up. He fought his way back into Europe and eventually became a UFC champion with incredible knockout power and improved wrestling skills. Ngannou was not a wrestler until his loss to Stipe Miocic in a title bout. A loss that really changed his fighting style. Which we saw against Cyril Gane.
About 6 months after his first and only title defence in the UFC with Cyril Gane, Francis Ngannou decided to leave his title to pursue boxing and get paid better and some of us were biting our lips and wondering what he was doing. Before then he had expressed interest in fighting Tyson Fury but since the UFC and Dana White were not interested, he decided to leave.
Luckily for Francis he got a contract with the Professional Fighters League (PFL – an MMA league) with an option to box. While we were waiting for his first PFL bout, the Tyson Fury match was announced. The pay was good for him and he went for it. It was supposed to be an exhibition match but somehow it was later sanctioned by the World Boxing Commission (WBC). Therefore, Francis Ngannou had his boxing career finally launched. The fight came off in October 2023 and Ngannou knocked down Fury in the first 3 rounds and went the distance(10 rounds) with the WBC champion. This shocked the world and even Tyson Fury himself.
However, anyone who has followed boxing for a while, watching that fight one could tell Francis Ngannou had a lot to learn. Yes, he may have been a fighter all his life, from whence he came from to where he has gotten to. But boxing is an art and anyone who wants to survive in the ring must understand the rules of the game. I am sure he knew this long before entering the ring with Fury. But against Anthony Joshua he forgot what he was up against. In the build up to the fight Francis often said ‘I am here to have fun’. It was a disaster-class against a masterclass Anthony Joshua. Let us say it how it is and not because I dislike Ngannou now.
Those of us who were following Ngannou into boxing ‘cautiously’ were hoping to see an improved boxer in his fight against Anthony Joshua. But that was not the case! Francis’s first boxing match may have probably gotten into his head and because a lot of people had pushed the narrative that Joshua had a glass chin, one punch from Ngannou was going to put him out. Only for us to end up seeing ‘The Predator’ being ‘the Prey’ as Anthony Joshua wrote after the torturing experience Francis’ supporters saw that night. The hardest puncher went to the canvas twice before he was laid to rest the third time in the second round of the 10-round bout. It was sad!
It was sad to watch what happened to the little boy who worked in the sand mines of Cameroon and struggled through the deserts of North Africa and risked his life on the Mediterranean Sea not once but 7 times. I mean, this was not Francis’ first loss as a fighter, he had lost to Stipe Miocic and others in ways which could be ignored somewhat. But this loss was in a terrible fashion, one we will not forget. Because before the Anthony Joshua fight Ngannou made a profound statement during the face-off which got me and most people pumped up. He said, and I paraphrase “I am not here to fight for titles, I am here to make fights. Because sometimes even when you lose, people want to see you fight again. And that is what I want to do”. Francis did not fight, he lost and lost woefully; and I hate to say this as his ardent follower and admirer.
Francis Returns To The Ring.
Francis Ngannou will take his first first with the PFL for the first time in the MMA world ever since he left the UFC, and this will be his first first after his loss to Anthony Joshua.
He will take on Renan Ferreira from Brazil in Saudi Arabia on 19th October, 2024 in Riyadh – the people who have fanned his boxing career.
“I never left MMA. Also, I haven’t left boxing,” Ngannou told BBC Sport.
“I’m not returning to MMA, I never left MMA. That’s the confusion.”
It feels good to see Francis come back and make a name for himself whether in boxing or in MMA, fair enough for his legacy and we will be here to support it. But never are we going to give him a chance based on the fact that he came from a deprived background. Now he has made some money and he can afford good coaches. Therefore, we want to see a skillful boxer and fighter and not a little boy from the Sand mines of Cameroon or the young man who was fighting for his life through the desert and on the Mediterranean Sea. That doesn’t mean anything when one gets into the ring or cage. Now that he has suffered a knockout, the Pandora Box has been opened and other fighters will come at him to get a bit of him.
Ngannou was out speaking on his Instagram page and during the post-fight media conference after his Joshua fight, he said he was not done with boxing and that he ‘felt boxing owed him something now’. He repeated the same, recently in an interview on MMA Junkie with Ariel Helwani. Nobody owes you anything, my big brother. If he enters the ring or cage again with that kind of mentality, we may be seeing the beginning of the end; and if you listen to reasons he gives for his loss to Joshua, they are just; to say the least, funny!
Anyway, Let us see what is in there for him. Somehow he must be proud of himself for daring to be great. Most people in his shoes would have given up and ended up somewhere gnashing in regret but he has made a name for himself. We can not wait to see if he can dig deep into himself and build from the bottom. Who knows, maybe Francis may we-write the Francis Ngannou Story’ anew. Whichever way it goes now, we are not going to judge him based on his upbringing. We want to see a skillful, powerful fighter; otherwise stay at home and enjoy your money. I mean invest right!
