Former UFC Middleweight Luke Rockhold accuses Israel Adesanya and Kamaru Usman of letting down Francis Ngannou.
Luke Rockhold accuses Israel Adesanya and Kamaru Usman of failing to stand up for their fellow champion Francis Ngannou amid the heavyweight’s tensions with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White.
Rockhold has refused to bite his tongue on issues of fighter pay and fighter rights in the lead-up to his fight against Sean Strickland, taking place at UFC 268: “Usman vs. Covington 2” at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York on Sat., Nov. 6 via ESPN+ pay-per-view PPV).
“No one has enough balls,” Rockhold told Ariel Helwani on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour (h/t MMA Fighting). “No one has enough cajones. That’s the problem. Not enough to [make a difference]. There’s very few people that have the f*cking balls, but to get the right amount of people together to do that thing, it would never happen. Not in any foreseeable future. [The UFC] gives out enough to make everyone come back for more. You know what I mean? And then someone f—king sparks up a conversation and they get shelved until they run out of money and they want to come back, and they have to do what they have to do, and they have to take the paycheck they have to take. This is the game they play.”
UFC Heavyweight champion Ngannou and his management have had public disputes with White over how UFC brass treated “The Predator”, and Rockhold believes that was the perfect time for fellow champions Adesanya and Usman to rally.
“If they’re going to do that to Francis and then no one else [speaks up], his two brothers aren’t going to get behind him and sack up and be the men they should’ve been when he got shelved — you’ve got two Nigerian brothers, they’re champions, they should’ve just stood by him and been men, and maybe that could change the landscape,” Rockhold said. “But that’s about it. I saw an opportunity there. That’s when I saw an opportunity. Other than that, you need 25 [big-name] guys. Twenty-five guys aren’t coming together. Maybe more, I don’t know, maybe less. Maybe give or take. That sh*t ain’t going to happen.
“That was the only thing that I saw that actually could’ve leveled the playing field and changed things for the better,” he added. “When you f—k with Francis and you’ve got this three amigos Nigerian brotherhood, if those two would’ve stood up, they could’ve f—ked. They could’ve f—ked deep and hard. But the two didn’t step up.”
Fun fact, Ngannou is from Cameroon and not Nigeria.
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