After four long years, Ngannou is done with all these Jon Jones fight questions.
Francis Ngannou is getting sick of being asked about Jon Jones.
“The Predator” is in Saudi Arabia for the big Oleksandr Usyk vs. Tyson Fury rematch on Saturday, December 21st. While in the country he’ll have a chance to sit down with Riyadh Season head Turki Alalshikh to discuss his next fight. Turki has suggested Jones’ name may come up, but until then Ngannou doesn’t want to hear it any more.
“It’s been four years that I’ve been saying it, I’m confused that people keep asking me this question,” Ngannou told Seconds Out. “It’s been four years! That’s not my problem, I don’t care about it anymore. If it happens, yes, if it doesn’t, f— it.”
So what does big Fran want?
“What I do know for sure is that I want a rematch with Fury,” he said.
A rematch with Anthony Joshua? Not so much.
“The rematch with Joshua, honestly I felt very off and not very comfortable in that fight,” Ngannou said. “It’s definitely something that could happen, but … I’m not a conspiracy theorist but I didn’t like the Joshua fight. I think things wasn’t right. Nothing was right. And if it’s going to be the same scenario, I’m not interested.”
Ngannou has gone into some detail on how he was screwed around on fight night and made to wait four hours in his locker room for the bout to finally kick off. He implied there were other shenanigans during fight week that were designed to waste his time and frustrate him, all thanks to the Joshua-friendly British promoters running things behind the scenes.
Nine years ago today, Francis Ngannou made his UFC debut pic.twitter.com/yLs4LfnLZL
— MMA Mania (@mmamania) December 19, 2024
While Ngannou picked Tyson Fury to beat Oleksandr Usyk in Saturday’s rematch, he better hope Fury loses if he wants to fight “The Gypsy King” any time soon. Fury has it written into his contract that a win over Usyk in the rematch triggers an immediate trilogy fight. And if Fury loses? It’ll still be tough for Francis to land the fight with a Fury vs. Joshua fight right there to be made.
Not mentioned was Deontay Wilder, who Alalshikh mentioned as a potential fight for Ngannou … after Turki got a look into “The Bronze Bomber’s” eyes to ensure he still had the will to fight after one too many peace-inducing Ayahuasca trips.