Francis Ngannou may have nearly fell asleep during warmups for his boxing return earlier this month, but the former UFC heavyweight champion was left unconscious after Anthony Joshua delivered a knockout from hell.
Fight fans can now check out the moments immediately following Ngannou’s devastating defeat as “Predator” shared new behind-the-scenes footage on Saturday. Check it out in the above video player via Ngannou’s YouTube channel.
In case you missed it, Ngannou fell flat in his return to the boxing ring. The former UFC heavyweight king shocked the boxing world by almost defeating Tyson Fury in his boxing debut last October. Ngannou scored a knockdown in that fight and looked poised to give Joshua a real run for his money earlier this month in Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.
Ngannou, who had never been finished in his combat career before his tilt with Joshua, was blasted with a huge knockdown in Round 1. “Predator” was completely caught off guard and almost had an outer body experience when it happened.
“Even the first time, I was quite surprised, like, ‘Damn, I can’t be falling from this punch,’” Ngannou said. “The punch was hard, but I don’t think it was the punch that usually would take me down.”
The chaos didn’t stop there. After regrouping in his corner after the first round Ngannou went back out and suffered two more knockdowns. The final punch from Joshua sent Ngannou crashing to the canvas in terrifying fashion, leaving fight fans everywhere in complete awe. It also left Ngannou thinking about all the things that went wrong.
“I think this is a knockout, this is a weird loss,” Ngannou said. “Something that I wouldn’t like to experience, but I think it will stay as a defeat only if I don’t learn from it and come back from it.
“Just life, you don’t make any excuse. That’s what we sign up for when you come to a sport like this. You always know that there is stuff like that, that could happen.”
The video also captures Ngannou being embraced by family members and teammates backstage as he was recovering from the vicious knockout.
Ngannou, who should be making his official return to mixed martial arts (MMA) later this year for his Professional Fighters League (PFL) debut, will have some time to recover from this wild knockout loss. But now that he’s seen the shadow realm firsthand will the former UFC champion ever be the same?
Let us know!