The UFC’s attempt to erase heavyweight great Francis Ngannou from its history continues.
The knockout artist departed MMA’s leading promotion at the start of 2023, bringing to an end a lengthy contractual dispute that saw the Cameroonian fail to secure the terms he was after.
He’s since found them under the PFL banner, where he’s made the most of the freedom granted to him to explore a career in the professional boxing ring and begin a role as chairman for the promotion’s Africa expansion.
After two blockbuster boxing matchups against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, Ngannou made his long-awaited return to the cage last month in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Headlining the PFL’s latest pay-per-view, “The Predator” became the inaugural Super Fights heavyweight champion by battering Renan Ferreira en route to a first-round TKO.
The weeks since have seen Dana White attempt to detract from Ngannou. The UFC CEO has claimed that he didn’t like and even wanted to release Ngannou — who went on to win the title and become one of the greatest heavyweights of all-time — following his loss to Derrick Lewis in 2018.
He’s also insisted that Ngannou is “all about the money,” but simultaneously claimed that he turned down a more lucrative future in the UFC. That’s without mentioning the narrative that he ran from Jon Jones despite calling to fight “Bones” in the same year he defeated Stipe Miocic to capture gold.
And speaking of his title crowning, it would seem the UFC is doing what it can to erase the memory of it.
As the promotion prepares to stage the 100th UFC Fight Night to be hosted at the Apex this weekend, it compiled the “top 100 Apex knockouts” in a recent YouTube video. In terms of KOs witnessed there, not many were more brutal and important as Ngannou’s to finish the great Miocic in 2021.
With that in mind, surely it cracked the top five? Top 10? At the very least the top 50, right?! Okay, but it’s in the top 100, surely?!
The full video is below, so you can see for yourself which 100 knockouts were apparently better than Ngannou leaving the consensus heavyweight GOAT sleeping on the canvas…
Ngannou’s omission, which was first highlighted by MMA Orbit’s Logan Offord, is far from the first time that the UFC has been accused of attempting to eliminate the 38-year-old from its history.
The promotion has previously described Tafon Nchukwi as the first and only Cameroonian fighter in UFC history, of course ignoring Ngannou’s presence in that regard.
And just this past August, controversy swirled when Israel Adesanya’s comments were edited to take his mention of Ngannou as an African champion alongside him and Kamaru Usman out during the UFC 305 Countdown episode.
“The Last Stylebender” publicly spoke out against that, leading to White accepting responsibility for what he branded a mishap and call the former two-time middleweight champion to apologize.
But judging by the recent YouTube video, that incident evidently didn’t do much to alter the ‘avoid mentioning Ngannou’ approach.
Continue Reading UFC Omits Francis Ngannou’s Title Win Over Miocic From Top 100 Apex Knockouts at MMA News.