Undisputed heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou is nearing the end of his contract with the UFC, and these days there isn’t much doubt as to whether he plans to stay with the promotion or not. Ngannou and the UFC have been on poor terms for a while now, a result (according to Francis) of Ngannou’s unwillingness to sign a new deal. Since then “The Predator” has claimed the UFC was trying to ‘sabotage’ his career.
Ngannou and his team did their best to lay out the case for his discontent with the UFC in the lead up and aftermath of his UFC 270 fight against Ciryl Gane. But the media war isn’t ending there. Now, in a new video posted to Ngannou’s own YouTube channel, the champ goes deeper into his issues with the UFC … and more specifically, the UFC contract.
“In the past two years, they claim to provide three fights for their fighters every year,” he said. “But in the past two years, I fought twice. I could at least fight five times. And knowing that I’m counting on that to make my living, that was kind of like, I felt like I was freezed to get financial pressure, to maybe come to an agreement from what they are saying, to need them. So that was something that I felt, and I don’t want to get in this position anymore.”
“In the past, when I wasn’t fighting, asking for fights, I had to beg for a fight,” Ngannou added. “And the way that I was treated, I don’t want to deal with this type of situation anymore. It doesn’t matter what is on line. This has to change. I need to feel somebody, I need to get in a contract that holds both [sides] accountable for something, responsible — you have your own part of the contract to fulfill as well. I didn’t feel like it was a fair contract for me.”
Ngannou clearly hasn’t been happy with how the UFC has been behaving towards him. Someone he holds a higher opinion of right now? YouTuber turned boxer turned UFC fighter pay advocate Jake Paul.
“I’m 100 percent with him for what [Paul] says,” Ngannou said. “Like when he claims he’s for fighter health care, I’m 100% down with that. When he says he’s for fighter pay increase, I’m 1000% down for that. Fighters are not protected. Fighters are all out there on their own, and nobody looks out for them.”
Ngannou painted the picture of fighters accepting fights when hurt because they were too poor to choose otherwise. It sounded pretty autobiographical.
“They have debt, they need to borrow money to subsidize their life,” he said. “So even though he knows that he’s not getting paid enough, he can’t pass that opportunity, because he has a machete on his throat, so he needs that. How is he going to fight against the system? He can’t fight against the system. He’s just going to take it. Just going to sit on his pride and keep doing it, and the power will keep getting bigger in the other hand and the fighter will keep getting smaller in the other hand.”
Ngannou is currently sidelined with a badly injured knee which is expected to keep him out of action until his UFC contract expires around the end of 2022. We doubt he’d be making videos on his own YouTube channel criticizing the UFC if he felt like the situation could be resolved. And bringing up UFC president Dana White’s new nemesis, Jake Paul? Not conductive to reconcilliation. Then again, the UFC has already threatened to sue Ngannou and his management for speaking to Paul’s business partner … so as we said: we feel like the ship has sailed on working things out.