The UFC’s attempt to erase Francis Ngannou’s legacy doesn’t sit well with Dan Hardy.
Earlier this month, the UFC came under fire after the promotion had seemingly removed Israel Adesanya’s mention of Ngannou from an episode of UFC 305 Countdown.
Dana White later took full responsibility for the situation during a DWCS media scrum and offered an apology to Adesanya. “Someone was editing that and made a conscious decision, thinking that was the right thing to do — that that’s what we would have wanted, what I would have wanted,” White said.
Unfortunately, this was far from the first time the promotion has attempted to scrub the Cameroonian from its history books.
During an event inside The APEX last year, a graphic flashed on the screen during Tafon Nchukwi’s walk to the Octagon that dubbed him the only Cameroonian fighter in UFC history. Ngannou was born and raised in the West Central African country before beginning a 14-month-long journey to Paris when he was 26 years old.
During a recent interview with Sportskeeda MMA, former UFC title challenger Dan Hardy shared his take on the promotion’s conduct concerning Ngannou and how it all feels very reminiscent of when the UFC parted ways with another former heavyweight champion, Randy Couture.
“It was sad to see and it didn’t surprise me unfortunately and I did see what Dana’s reply was about the fact that the editors had assumed that’s what he would have chosen and what he would have wanted and look, they were probably right because it’s happened so many times in history. Ngannou and Randy, they’re two fantastically credible names in the sport” (h/t MMA News).
Dan Hardy likens his own situation with the UFC and the erasure of Francis Ngannou
‘The Outlaw’ was also able to draw comparisons to his own experience with the UFC, even if it was on a much smaller scale.
“My history in the UFC is far more mediocre in comparison but even so, at UFC London when Veronica was on the card, there’s posters of all the UK fighters on all of the underground tubes and everything and of course, I’m not there,” Hardy added. “It does happen, they do it a lot.
“It makes no difference to me, I can dye my hair red and walk down the street and people will remember my fights. It’s just kind of a weird thing to see and for people like Randy and Ngannou, they need to be celebrated because they’ve inspired so many people, myself included. They shouldn’t be omitted, they’re part of the fabric of the sport and I think the fans will always remember that.”
After airing some disagreements with the UFC both publicly and privately, Hardy and the promotion parted ways in 2021. Since then, the UFC has continued to ignore Hardy’s place in history as the first British fighter to compete for a UFC title when he challenged Georges St-Pierre for the welterweight championship in 2010.
Today, Hardy is the Head of Fighter Operations for PFL Europe and regularly lends his expertise as a member of the commentary team alongside Couture and Sean O’Connell
