Though it’s early, the largest story of 2022 to this point has been Francis Ngannou’s contract scenario with the UFC.
At UFC 270, Ngannou mentioned he fought the ultimate combat on his UFC contract, profitable a unanimous determination over Ciryl Gane to retain the UFC heavyweight title. After the victory, he was open about the place he stands with the UFC, saying that he didn’t know if the UFC even wants to re-sign him, but if they do, he would want to have the ability to pursue fights in boxing as well as MMA. It’s an exception the UFC has made solely as soon as, when Conor McGregor when he boxed Floyd Mayweather Jr., nevertheless it’s a situation that boxing promoter Eddie Hearn believes the UFC will finally give in to.
“In the end, throughout that interval, the stress’s on the UFC to go to Francis Ngannou and do a brand new deal, they usually’ll considerably overpay him from the place he’s at,” Hearn predicted not too long ago on The MMA Hour. “But it surely comes all the way down to the sensation of the fighter to say, ‘I really feel like I’ve been mistreated so I don’t need to be right here anymore,’ however I might be shocked in the event that they didn’t do a brand new take care of Francis Ngannou. I might say it’s virtually a certainty that they’ll by the point all of it performs out.”
Others are less sure, partially due to simply how dangerous the scenario between the 2 events has gotten. After Ngannou’s victory over Gane, UFC president Dana White was not within the cage to current Ngannou with the title, as is custom, something that Ngannou’s team took as a personal slight, although White later attempted to brush off as a mere coincidence.
What White can’t brush off is that simply hours earlier than his scheduled title combat, the UFC sent Ngannou’s manager an email threatening legal action over alleged contact with Jake Paul’s business partner. And if the UFC doesn’t handle to retain Ngannou, effectively, Hearn believes that the heavyweight champion has loads of marketable choices out there to him elsewhere.
“In the course of the pandemic, I used to be doing a great deal of stuff on Zoom, simply making an attempt to create content material, and I learn that Francis wished to be a boxer and was thinking about preventing,” Hearn mentioned. “So I received in contact along with his staff as a result of he had somewhat little bit of beef with Dillian Whyte, nothing main, however I received in contact along with his staff and I mentioned, let’s do a Zoom, you, me, and Dillian Whyte. Simply bored. So that they agreed to it, and subsequent factor, I’m on a Zoom with Dillian Whyte and Francis Ngannou mainly going at it. ‘I’ll knock you out, he’s all hype, blah, blah, blah.’
“Then phrase has received to the UFC that I’ve completed, finally, a press convention to advertise a combat. I wasn’t even pondering, after which Dana messaged me and mentioned, ‘What are you doing? You’ve completed a press convention with Francis Ngannou and Dillian Whyte.’ And I’m like, ‘Properly it wasn’t actually a press convention, it was only a Zoom.’ Then I received a authorized letter from the UFC to say you possibly can’t be placing this out. They had been 1,000,000 % proper, however on the time I used to be pondering that is large — and I nonetheless suppose Francis Ngannou vs. Tyson Fury, Francis Ngannou vs. AJ [Anthony Joshua], Dillian, they’re big, big fights.”
How massive these fights may very well be stays to be seen, however in any case there may be actually curiosity on all sides. Each Fury and Whyte have mentioned outright they’d be thinking about dealing with Ngannou, with the former even suggesting doing so under a modified ruleset.
So if the UFC doesn’t finally re-sign Ngannou, maybe Hearn can sooner or later maintain an actual press convention with “The Predator.”
