Vicious heavyweight knockout artist Francis Ngannou believes a potential fight against former dual weight UFC champion Daniel Cormier would be much tougher than facing off in a rematch with current heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic.
Miocic made a third title defence when he beat Ngannou at UFC 220 in January 2018. The 37-year-old survived plenty of power shots from the KO specialist and went on to dominate the fight with his wrestling – picking up a unanimous decision verdict after five rounds of fighting.
The Ohio native has since gone on to lose and regain his title against Cormier. Right now he is healing up from an eye injury and hesitant about fighting due to the ongoing coronavirus, something which is annoying number one contender Ngannou.
Speaking to BJPenn.com Ngannou urged the UFC to stop the heavyweight division from becoming stagnant after almost a year without a title fight and nothing booked right now.
“I think the UFC needs to do something and make a title fight happen. I don’t know when the pandemic will end. No disrespect to Stipe because he’s a well-deserved champion but the division needs to move on,” Ngannou said. “The division can’t be held down any longer. Whatever it takes, and whatever the UFC has to do to make the division move on has to be done. It’s almost been a year since the last title fight and who knows when the next title fight will happen.”
Ngannou went on to say he is happy to fight Cormier for a potentially vacant title should Miocic be stripped due to inactivity.
“First of all, I would be very happy to fight Cormier. He needs to the trilogy with Stipe as his retirement fight so there was no point of me calling him out,” he said. “But, he came out himself and said he would do the fight with me. It would be an honor for me to fight him. I see myself walking out with my hand raised.”
Despite being confident of beating Cormier, Ngannou believes ‘DC’ is a much tougher fight for him than a rematch against heavyweight champion Miocic would be, he explained.
“Honestly, I am more confident in a rematch against Stipe than I am to fight Cormier. I think Cormier is a bigger challenge for me than Stipe. I’ve been in there with Stipe and he couldn’t finish me. If that was DC he would’ve finished me. I was done, I couldn’t move and Stipe still couldn’t finish me. I think if I fight Stipe again, I’ll have more knowledge and how to beat him.”
Who do you think is the tougher match-up for Francis Ngannou, Daniel Cormier or Stipe Miocic?