Francis Ngannou is no longer ranked in the Top 10 of the WBC rankings.
In fact, “The Predator” won’t even make the Top 20 after getting brutally knocked out by Anthony Joshua ahead of this week’s official update. That’s because the former UFC heavyweight champion, despite his impressive showing against Tyson Fury last fall, remains 0-2 in his professional boxing career.
Ngannou, 37, is now ranked No. 24 in the heavyweight division.
Here’s the current Top 25:
1. Anthony Joshua
2. Frank Sanchez
3. Agit Kabayel
4. Ajagba Nigeria
5. Jared Anderson
6. Daniel Dubois
7. Deontay Wilder
8. Filip Hrgovic
9. Zhilei Zhang
10. Martin Bakole
11. Joe Joyce
12. Bakhodir Jalolov
13. Arslanbek Makhmudov
14. Fabio Wardley
15. Luis Ortiz
16. Otto Wallin
17. Dereck Chisora
18. Justis Huni
19. Mourad Aliev
20. Jermaine Franklin
21. Charles Martin
22. Carlos Takam
23. Frazer Clarke
24. Francis Ngannou
25. Zhan Kossobutskiy
For context, Zhan Kossobutskiy is 19-1 with 18 knockouts.
“What I think something that’s happened is that they get me to the arena very early,” Ngannou told The MMA Hour. “Like my pickup time was 10:30 p.m. to go the arena and when we get to the arena, they tell us we are scheduled around 1:45 a.m. And then around 1 a.m., they come to the locker [room] and Joshua hasn’t arrived. So I’m like, ‘we’re fighting around the same time.’ Even during the week we were going to places and having to wait and [my coach] was complaining, ‘They do this kind of trick to get you tired.’ I didn’t know how important that was until fight week.”
Ngannou is expected to return to MMA for PFL at some point later this year.