Francis Ngannou found his passion with MMA, and his progress since his professional debut in November 2013 has been nothing short of staggering.
Francis Ngannou, a Cameroonian-born Frenchman who come up short against Stipe Miocic in a Heavyweight title bout in Saturday’s UFC 220 headliner at TD Garden in Boston on January 20th.
Ngannou’s winning streak came to an end after five rounds. Miocic left Boston as the first UFC heavyweight champion to defend the title three consecutive times. It wasn’t the performance that was promoted or expected, resulting in Miocic taking the opponent into the deepest of waters and dominating him to a decision win.
But it seems like Francis Ngannou is ready to slow down the breakneck pace of his career, took to social media and announce that he is taking some time off from fighting.
“In my dark way, I’m taking some time off which will benefit my personal life by going back home to enjoy family and friends. Then I’ll be back to set businesses up.” — Francis Ngannou on Twitter.
Ngannou did not give a specific length for his planned time off or when he intends to return to UFC Octagon, but he certainly deserves some time off before returning to work. It will also allow him to digest the lessons he learned from losing to UFC champ Stipe Miocic.
“He did a good job to hang there, but I won’t lie, I was disappointed. When I saw Francis [Ngannou] rush in and throw a high kick, I was shocked. […] I’ll be honest, I’ve not talked to Francis about it yet. I don’t like to have a debrief straight after the fight. I like to have two weeks to let the fighter think and digest the fight. When he’s ready, two weeks later I’ll talk with him and try to understand why he went for that gameplan and that strategy. I didn’t expect what happened. The gameplan was so different, but Francis just went rushing after him, hunting him and yeah it just wasn’t what we had planned.” — Coach Fernand Lopez was speaking to MMA NYTT.
Regardless of his recent loss, Ngannou began his UFC career with six straight stoppage wins and he was on a run of four consecutive first-round stoppages. Ngannou said he underestimated his opponent Miocic, he has learned a lot and will be back more stronger.
