Ngannou coach Eric Nicksick knows how he’d get ‘The Predator’ to fight Jon Jones, which is why he’s so bummed out the match-up may never happen.
Francis Ngannou is coming off a quick first round knockout over Renan Ferreira in his PFL debut, but don’t expect him to defend his new PFL heavyweight title in the coming months. According to his longtime coach Eric Nicksick, it’s slim pickings as far as viable opponents go in the MMA scene right now.
“I really think the options out there for him are bigger in boxing right now,” he told Kevin Iole in a new interview. “I don’t really know [who in] the heavyweight landscape of free agents or guys in the PFL that could deliver at the moment. I think Renan [Ferreira] was the guy that we thought was gonna be the the biggest name, and then who was gonna be available free agency wise?”
“We saw Derrick Lewis was gonna hit the free agent market. There was a couple names that might have been available. But right now, I think boxing to me might be the best avenue for him as far as name value goes, and of course making that money.”
Derrick Lewis was a free agent for all of one week before re-signing with the UFC, and he recently thanked Ngannou for helping him get a significant pay bump to stay. You gotta get real weird now to find anything compelling for “The Predator” in PFL — a two-sport, two-fight deal with Deontay Wilder has been floated but involves so many moving parts it seems unlikely at this point.
The obvious pick from fans would be a showdown with UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones, but UFC CEO Dana White has straight-up declared he’ll never do business with Ngannou again. Regardless, Nicksick shared his gameplan for Ngannou if that fight did come together.
“I think you have to put Jon on his back foot,” he said. “You have to put pressure on him. You have to put him up against the corner post, and you can’t get in a technical fight with Jon. You couldn’t allow him to dictate the hand play, where he starts to occupy your hands. That’s a slow pace type of fight where Jon is very technical there, and he starts to pick you apart with elbows and the clinch and the knees and all the things that he does so well.”
“For me, I thought, ‘Make it an ugly fight. Don’t make a technical fight.’ You’re gonna have to make this grimy and try to get out of there. Try to get out of there in the first two, three rounds. I think the longer a fight would have gone between Jon and Francis, it would have favored more Jon. If we put a game plan on him, we’re gonna have to put the pace on him.”
As for how he feels about the low likelihood the two will ever face off, Nicksick admitted he and the whole team were bummed about it.
“Highly disappointed,” he said. “Because we’re all competitors, and it’s about legacy. It’s about putting your best athlete, your best skill set, up against arguably the best to ever do it in Jon Jones. That’s the thing that will bother us, and it bothers me as a coach. I wanted to have that opportunity to try to game plan against who I feel is the best pound-for-pound to ever do it.”
“Just to be able to have that shot, that type of legacy, I think that’s one thing that will always bother Francis.”