Francis Ngannou and Dana White continue to play the blame game.
The former UFC heavyweight champion exited the promotion nearly two years ago, leaving a big-money matchup with Jon Jones on the table. Who’s to blame for the fight never coming to fruition changes depending on who you talk to. White insists that it was Ngannou who prevented the matchup from happening while ‘The Predator’ claims the promotion told him that ‘Bones’ wanted no part of it.
In the end, Ngannou walked away from the organization before signing a groundbreaking deal with the Professional Fighters League. Now, the Cameroonian will make his Smart Cage debut on October 19 when he meets 2023 PFL heavyweight champion Renan Ferreira on pay-per-view.
Not long after signing Francis Ngannou, PFL founder Donn Davis expressed interest in co-promoting an event with the UFC to finally give fans the heavyweight fight they’ve been longing for. Unfortunately, the possibility of that happening seems pretty slim—especially with Dana White and his massive ego at the helm.
Recently, multi-time UFC heavyweight titleholder Randy Couture offered his take on the situation, suggesting that the UFC simply isn’t the business of getting into business with its competitors.
“I know the UFC’s got too big [of] an ego to let that happen,” Couture told MMA Fighting. “That’s why the Fedor [Emelianenko] fight never happened [for me]. Because M-1 wanted to do a co-promotion and the UFC’s never going to let that happen.”
“I don’t see the champ in the UFC ever getting a shot at fighting the champ from PFL or any other organization for that matter, and that’s unfortunate,” Couture said. “That’s a shame that the fans are never going to get to see those types of matchups. That’s one of the flaws and issues in our sport right now.”
Randy Couture Excited to See Francis Ngannou Get Back to Work in MMA
By the time he steps into the PFL Smart Cage in October, it will have been 21 months since Ngannou scored a unanimous decision victory over Ciryl Gane at UFC 270.
Over the last two years, ‘The Predator’ has been testing himself in the sweet science, facing Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. Ngannou delivered an impressive showing against ‘The Gypsy King’ last October, nearly besting the unbeaten Brit before coming up short on two of the three scorecards.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite as well in his scrap with Joshua. After getting knocked down in the opening round, ‘AJ’ finished things with a booming right hand in the second.
Couture sees Francis Ngannou’s return to the cage as an opportunity to remind the world just how dangerous he is, especially in four-ounce gloves.
“This is a huge fight for Francis for a whole bunch of reasons,” Couture said. “Getting back into that cage, shoring up that wrestling, sharpening those tools, and MMA is a different engagement than boxing is. Anybody that can’t see that now is missing the point. He’s putting it on the line. He’s willing to step up there and do that. I don’t think he’s scared of anybody, so yeah, I think all those things come into play.”
Watch the full interview below:
