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Ex-UFC champion Francis Ngannou claims he never avoided Jon Jones: ‘I would fight him twice a month’

Francis Ngannou may never step foot in a UFC Octagon again, but he assures MMA fans that the last thing on his mind before leaving the promotion was avoiding Jon Jones. Nearly a week has passed since Jones took over the heavyweight division in his UFC return, and since then he and Ngannou have remained […]

Francis Ngannou may never step foot in a UFC Octagon again, but he assures MMA fans that the last thing on his mind before leaving the promotion was avoiding Jon Jones.

Nearly a week has passed since Jones took over the heavyweight division in his UFC return, and since then he and Ngannou have remained a topic of conversation.

Once Jones’ arm was raised at UFC 285, Francis Ngannou sent out a tweet which many have considered to be a backhanded compliment.

During the post-fight press conference, Jones had the tweet read to him, and he did not have a kind choice of words for his heavyweight counterpart.

Speaking yesterday with ESPN MMA’s Brett Okamoto, Francis Ngannou said that he is at peace with himself and is not concerned by Jones’ comments because he pursued that matchup before his departure.

“I did everything to have that fight. At the end it just felt like begging to keep me, and maybe do something that I don’t want. Yes I wanted that fight, but not at any cost.”

Ngannou was not amused by Dana White’s public comments stating that he avoided a fight with Jones.

He doubled down on the idea that the sole reason he parted ways with the UFC was due to the promotion failing to meet his contract demands on numerous occasions.

“I don’t care about what Dana White said, that was my call not his call.”

He once again took his thoughts to Twitter with videos of White’s change of heart which Francis Ngannou clearly felt was hypocritical.

Ngannou was seen watching Jones’ return against Ciryl Gane with his family in a positive manner and he says this is because he was simply a viewer just like everyone else, and he did not feel any differently after seeing Jones win.

Speaking with several promotions since his UFC exit, Ngannou said that fans should not look back and ponder at the matchup which never took place.

It seems as though the two colossal figures will never cross paths again, and Francis Ngannou is certain that the last thing on his mind was fearing Jones.

“There is not a fight on earth that I will back down from. He might be the best fighter ever, but he’s not the guy that I’m running away from.”

“I would fight Jon Jones twice a month.”

Although the two may have some unfriendly words for each other going forward, the bout is one that fans will have to look past, as Ngannou has his sights set on a professional debut in the boxing ring.

“I want to do one boxing match first, then maybe go back to MMA.”

Ngannou said that he had spoken to Eddie Hearn about a potential matchup with Anthony Joshua, but the majority of the conversation has been with Deontay Wilder’s team.

He dreams of a massive boxing event in Africa, and did not rule out the possibility of returning to MMA one day, as he also had talks with PFL and ONE FC.

Who do you think would have won between MMA’s all-time great and Francis Ngannou?

Dana White explains how drug scandal led to UFC signing $1.5 billion television deal with ESPN

With the Ultimate Fighting Championship growing bigger and bigger seemingly every month, it’s become an incredibly profitable business over the last several years, mostly thanks to the promotions President Dana White. There have however been a few instances where disaster could have struck, one of those times coming when their television deal with FOX was […]

At the time, it appeared there was little to no interest on ESPN’s side in making a deal with the promotion.

But, a drug scandal considerably reshaped the landscape that helped the sport grow to what it is today.

Dana White recently did a one hour interview with Grant Cardone, where he told the full story of this matter:

“I’ll tell you a crazy story. You ever hear of John Skipper? John Skipper ran ESPN. Now, I think he runs DAZN. Runs ESPN, beloved, looks like the squarest dude on the planet. Older guy. Hates UFC. Hates it. Hates UFC. Big soccer guy. For whatever reason, people like different things. And I’m not shitting on John Skipper. But this is a fact, this happened and this is a true story.

White continued: “John Skipper, beloved at ESPN, ESPN’s at the top of their game. These guys are killing it in revenue, they’re getting $5 per subscriber when cable was the biggest it’s ever been. So, our FOX deal is up and we’re probably not gonna do another deal with FOX. They’re selling off cable networks and restructuring. So they’re not the same company when we signed with them. And John Skipper’s never, ever gonna take the UFC. So, we’re in a real tough place.

“John Skipper’s cocaine dealer is gonna rat him out. So he has to tell Disney, ‘my cocaine dealer is gonna go public’ or whatever, so he has to step down from ESPN right at the time we’re trying to make a new TV deal. Who do they make president? Jimmy Pitaro, who ran Yahoo Sports for years. I’ve known him a long time. He’s a great dude, and he loves the UFC.

“Now you got him, you got a guy named Kevin Mayer, who is really closed to Ari (Emanuel), and we ended up doing the ESPN deal when our deal was up. So you want to talk about timing..”

It’s funny how things work out sometimes.

Today, ESPN has a deal with both the UFC and PFL, aiding the sport of MMA in growing bigger and better each and every year.

The sport of MMA is lucky to have someone like Dana White.

At the weigh ins of every pay-per-view event, a wise man says, ‘without him none of this would be possible.’

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Daniel Cormier Believes Francis Ngannou Wins Stipe Miocic Rematch

Since his trilogy fight with Stipe Miocic earlier this month at UFC 252, Daniel Cormier has had some time to reflect not only on his career, but the sport as a whole as well. Everyone knows Francis Ngannou is the No. 1 contender for the heavyweight throne, and Cormier believes he beats Miocic should they […]

‘DC’ had the following to say earlier today on ESPN MMA:

“The next time Stipe (Miocic) steps into the octagon, I don’t feel confident he’s gonna win, because all those shots come at a cost. I think Francis (Ngannou) wins the title next time.

“Unless Stipe takes a lot of time off to try to let his mind and his body, his head recover a little bit. Because think about it, Francis hit him with all those shots in January, I hit him in July and he went down, right? He took all the shots from Francis, but then when I hit him in July he went down.

“The last two years I hit him with those same shots and he was able to take ’em because it was a year between fights. So unless he takes a long time, the next time he fights he’s gonna get knocked out, because over the last three years, we’ve done a ton of damage to each other. We fought ten rounds in total.”

The former two-division UFC champion makes a good point, a great point. Luckily for us, Miocic has confirmed that Ngannou is next.

“Ngannou has definitely shown a lot better stuff since the first fight. He’s knocking everyone out in the first round. He’s just on a tear.”

On the other hand, Miocic has also stated that a rematch with Ngannou isn’t exciting to him.

“Francis isn’t exciting to me, already put on a 25 minutes clinic on how to beat him. (I) Want a new challenge! (I) Would love to box.”

With Jon Jones having vacated his UFC Light-Heavyweight Championship to go up to heavyweight, it’s doubtful he’d jump in front of Ngannou, though Jones moving to heavyweight has been talked about for years, and he still has yet to lose a fight.

Ngannou lost his next fight to Derrick Lewis after losing to Miocic because he was gunshy, but he’s won his last four straight, all via knockout, and without a single one of them going past 71 seconds. Perhaps Miocic can give Ngannou his rematch, then welcome Jones to the heavyweight division?

Who do you see winning Stipe Miocic vs. Francis Ngannou II?

Anderson Silva: Conor McGregor Is The Best One In This Sport

Brett Okamoto of ESPN MMA recently interviewed one of the greatest mixed martial arts fighters the sport has ever seen, former UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva. They got onto the topic of ‘The Notorious’ Conor McGregor, Okamoto asked,’last question about Conor, what would’ve happened if you guys had fought? What do you think would’ve happened?’ […]

Brett Okamoto of ESPN MMA recently interviewed one of the greatest mixed martial arts fighters the sport has ever seen, former UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva.

They got onto the topic of ‘The Notorious’ Conor McGregor, Okamoto asked,’last question about Conor, what would’ve happened if you guys had fought? What do you think would’ve happened?’

‘The Spider’ replied: “Wow, that’s very interesting, you know. It’s two big strikers, and I think for me, is a good challenge (for) myself. And challenge every single martial arts technique I’ve trained my entire life. You know, because Conor is a very athletic, is a very technique (technical), and he’s a good striker.

“And in my mind, it’s just you know, everybody fight with Conor and don’t realize that Conor is the best one in this sport. And (they) try to doing something better than Conor, but this is not happen because Conor is so smart, you know? Conor have the different time for everybody inside the cage.

“You know, especially when you fight for strikers, you know? Of course, when you see the fight, Conor with Khabib, it’s completely different. Khabib is the beast, you know? But when you’re talking about strikers, this is a good fight for fans.”

This would have been such a fun fight to see. Though Silva is far past his prime years, he is a great deal bigger than McGregor, that’d even things up a bit. Not to mention, he’s a 3rd-degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under the Nogueira brothers.

Silva also has a 5th-degree black belt in Taekwondo, and a black prajied (belt) in Muay Thai. And he’s right, McGregor is the best, or at least one of the select few best strikers in the sport. They both are, they’ve both finished so many of their opponents with strikes.

It’s a little surprising to see Silva put ‘The Notorious’ above himself, given how talented Silva’s striking was at his peak, but he has always been humble and never owned up to being the best in the world, even through his 16-0 UFC run and ten title defenses.

That run also included fourteen finishes and three trips up to light-heavyweight, all three of which ended via first round knockout.

One of which was against former UFC Light-Heavyweight Champion Forrest Griffin, who’d just lost the belt to Rashad Evans in his fight prior. If Silva moved up just a tad sooner, he could have been the first simultaneous double champ in UFC history, not McGregor.

Of McGregor’s 22 wins, 19 come via knockout; while of Silva’s 34 wins, 22 come via knockout. Those are some seriously impressive ratios.

It’s too bad we likely won’t ever see this fight. Though it doesn’t make the most sense, it’d be a great display of martial arts from two absolute legends.

Silva will be having his final fight on Halloween at UFC Fight Night 182 against Uriah Hall, and this is just as good of a match up.

People were saying Hall was ready to fight Silva while he was still on The Ultimate Fighter, while Silva was still the UFC Middleweight Champion. There was a lot of hype around Hall, and this fight.

Hall however couldn’t live up to the hype. He was 7-2 when he came to the UFC off the New Jersey regional scene, and went 4-0 with three brutal knockouts on the show. However, he lost his first two fights in the UFC, and has gone 8-5 since, bringing his UFC record to 8-7.

Hall gets mentally fatigued, he’s been shown to fold under pressure. He is on a two fight win streak though, he has a 2nd-degree black belt in Kyokushin Karate, and he’s as athletic and dangerous as they come.

He has shown us he can beat anyone on any given night, as he finished top middleweight Gegard Mousasi in round two of their first fight. Hall is an incredibly skilled talent that just hasn’t been able to really put it all together consistently in the UFC.

Now that Silva’s at the tale end of his career, this is the perfect fight to make at the time it will be at its most competitive.

Do you agree with Silva’s claim of McGregor being the best in the sport?