The bridges are well burnt between the UFC and Francis Ngannou according to CEO Dana White, who declared Franny is not the good person he pretends to be.
Dana White didn’t hold back when asked about Francis Ngannou during Saturday’s UFC 308 post-fight press conference.
White and Ngannou have engaged in a back-and-forth through the press for the past two weeks, with White claiming “The Predator” fumbled the bag by accepting less money outside the UFC than he’d make if he stayed. Francis, already nearly $40 million in earnings over the past year, disagrees.
Now White is pulling a Mad Men on Ngannou. When a reporter quoted Franny saying he was sure White “prays for his downfall,” Dana let ‘er rip.
“I don’t think about Francis that much,” he said. “You guys asked me the question about the PFL, and I responded. Other than that, the only one who’s praying for his demise is probably the PFL, because they signed a shitty contract with a guy that doesn’t deliver any numbers. And ticket sales and pay-per-views. So and they gotta keep paying this guy for however long. Good for him. Not good for them.”
“He can he can play those games all he wants,” White insisted. “He he would have made more money here.”
Who’s telling the truth? Well, the numbers have been crunched, and even if Ngannou went 3-0 in his next three UFC fights including two superfights with Jon Jones, he still would have only made around $31 million. He’s already made more than that in the past year losing twice in boxing and defeating Renan Ferreira in the PFL.
He has one more $8 million fight with PFL before becoming a free agent in MMA again, but don’t expect Dana White to bid for his services. In fact, if White had had his way he would have cut Ngannou after his bunk fight with Derrick Lewis in 2018.
“I didn’t like Francis as a person,” White said. “Wasn’t a guy I wanted to do business with. My boys were telling me he’s misunderstood. And I told them, when somebody shows you who they are, believe them.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t about him becoming the heavyweight champion of the world. Francis isn’t a good guy. He plays the good guy. ‘I don’t understand the language,’ so he seems like a nice guy. He’s not. And he’s just not a guy that I wanted to be in business with. Period. End of story. Whether he became the champion or not.”
Francis Ngannou went OFF on Dana White for lying and says he still owes him money pic.twitter.com/3iam1NVNGg
— Happy Punch (@HappyPunch) October 25, 2024
“We’ll never be in business together,” he added. “I mean, you could tell. Yeah, we don’t like each other. And this goes way back. This goes back to before the first Stipe fight. He pulled some shit before the first Stipe fight and I said, ‘I’m done with this guy.’ And then Stipe beat the shit out of him. Great night.”
Does that sound like the words of someone who prays for Ngannou’s downfall?
Now despite Ngannou declaring a Jones fight won’t happen because White won’t make it happen, White is saying it was Francis that’s at fault for the lack of a potential heavyweight superfight.
“He didn’t want that fight,” White said. “He could’ve stayed and took that fight. He didn’t want that fight. Tom Aspinall deserves that fight.”