F. Ngannou upon his arrival at the media day of the UFC 270 Photo: Instagram/@ufc
Contract renewal with Ultimate, possible boxing fight against Tyson Fury, confrontation against a former training partner… there are many problems that Francis Ngannou has faced outside the Octagon. When participating in the program ''The Jim Rome Show', UFC president Dana White warned the heavyweight champion (up to 120,2kg) about excessive distractions and asked him to focus only on the duel against Cyryl Gane.
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“Ngannou is talking, he doesn’t want to fight under his contract. He receives a piece of pay-per-view, like all other champions. He's worried about all these other things, he wants to box with (Tyson) Fury. You are the underdog on Saturday night. You're not the big favorite. Beat (Ciryl) Gane. Win this fight, then you can start talking about the possibility of other things. Let's be honest, Ngannou is in a place where he's made a lot of money. He's building a big house in his home country in Africa, he's building gyms for kids there. He’s doing all these things,” Dana said.
The president insinuated that fighters don't like to reveal how much money they really earn and warned of the enormous challenge it will be to face the 'hungry' Cyryl Gane'.
“Gane wants what this guy has. You've got that guy who's coming in and he's hungry. Nobody has enough money. Nobody's ever going to say they're being paid well, that they have a lot of money, but this guy made some real money and he's spending it and doing his thing. Gane wants that real money now. All these guys think they want to box. Ngannou boxing Fury, he has this power, that anything can happen, but he should be worried about Saturday night. That's one of the problems when you start moving forward and thinking about things. Focus on Gane and win this fight”, concluded Dana.
Riding on the back of five consecutive victories, Ngannou will face his former training partner Cyryl Gane No. UFC 270 next Saturday (22). The duel will define the linear champion of the division up to 120,2kg. The Cameroonian has a record of 16 triumphs and three setbacks in professional MMA.
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