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“To me and hopefully to Francis, it has to happen at the right time.”
As two of the heaviest punchers in the UFC, who wouldn’t want to see a heavyweight slugfest between Francis Ngannou and Anthony Johnson?
Speaking at a recent media scrum (h/t MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin), ‘Rumble’ hailed Ngannou the ‘scariest’ fighter in the heavyweight division and went on to state that he would be willing to fight ‘The Predator’ under the right circumstances.
“I think the scariest guy in the division for them is Francis [Ngannou]. The scariest, not the best but the scariest,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday.
“I think him and I will meet eventually but most people just want the fight,” he continued. “To me and hopefully to Francis, it has to happen at the right time,” Johnson explained. “Not just a fight happen, just to get everybody else’s rocks off. If I fight Francis, I want it to be for something serious. Not just a fight, a main event fight. Let us fight for the title, that way it really counts. Not just getting everybody else’s rocks off and just beating each other up for no reason.
“I want it to be a title fight. That fight is too hyped up and too big for it not to be a title fight, if one of us are holding the title. But if it’s the last [option], no other choice, that’s what I have to do but I don’t see it going down that way.”
Johnson, a multiple time UFC title challenger, retired from the sport in 2017 but recently announced that he would be making a comeback in the new year. The 35-year-old is targeting an April 2020 UFC return but, as of now, Johnson is not in the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s (USADA) drug testing pool.
Ngannou, 33, is on a three-fight KO streak and would like to face the winner of the proposed heavyweight trilogy bout between divisional champion Stipe Miocic and former two-division champ Daniel Cormier.