UFC legend Randy Couture called on Francis Ngannou and Jon Jones to ‘put their contracts and butts on the line.’
This past Tuesday, PFL announced they signed former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou after his exit from the promotion. They reached a groundbreaking agreement with Ngannou that allows him to box before making his debut under the banner and guarantees a seven-figure paycheck for his opponents as well.
Fans have been demanding a clash between reigning UFC heavyweight champ Jon Jones and Ngannou for over three years. After Jones relinquished the light heavyweight gold in 2020, expectations were high but the matchup fell through the cracks and appears near impossible as they both compete exclusively for different promotions.
Randy Couture calls on Francis Ngannou & Jon Jones to make the megafight happen
In a recent interview with SiriusXM, Randy Couture urged Francis Ngannou and Jon Jones to keep trading verbal jabs on social media to bring attention to the difficulties in the sport and make the fight happen.
“I would love to see these two guys get after it right now,” said Couture. “Jon’s approaching that arc in his career. He’s not getting any younger. He can’t sit out for three years. I mean I’m amazed at what he did after sitting out for three years and coming back against Ciryl Gane and doing what he did. Obviously, we’ve seen the transition with Francis and him coming into his prime in the last two years.
“These two guys right now I think are at their peak, in their careers. It would be great to have a way in our sport to make the fight happen because that’s the fight that all the fans in this sport want to see. I think them continuing to chirp and continuing to shine a light on the disparaging differences in our sport and other professional sports in our society is how that’s going to happen. So, they need to stay at it. They need to keep going and they need to be willing to step up and put their contracts and their butts on the line when it comes to make that change.”
Couture reflected on his failed matchup with Fedor Emelianenko
‘The Natural’ further opened up on similar differences that prevented his fight with MMA legend Fedor Emelianenko from taking place.
“I think [Ngannou vs Jones is the biggest fight to make in MMA] and therein lies the biggest issue in our sport. Why can Floyd Mayweather represent himself and fight wherever he wants, whichever title he wants. Because they have that transparency and those restrictive contracts are gone. In our sport that’s not possible. That PFL contract is pretty inclusive to just the PFL.
“This was the issue with the Fedor fight too. M-1 Global, which kinda owned Fedor, wanted a co-promotion. They had a contract agreement on money, they couldn’t agree on the co-promotion part of that to make that fight happen when I was in my prime.”
Jon Jones is coming off a dominant win over Ciryl Gane and is expected to take on former champ Stipe Miocic in his next fight. An official announcement is yet to follow.
