Francis Ngannou has a new home, and some choice words for the promoters he feels have been talking him too far.
On Tuesday, news broke that Ngannou’s highly publicized MMA free agency had come to an end — the former UFC heavyweight champion had signed with the PFL. The signing comes after two high-profile promoters publicly pulled themselves out of the Ngannou lottery, but according to “The Predator,” that never happened. For example, in April, BKFC chairman David Feldman said Ngannou was “asking for unrealistic money”, but Ngannou says neither he nor his team have even spoken to BKFC.
“I think he assumed I was too expensive, because it was obvious he had to borrow his house to make an offer, I think he assumed the loan could not be paid for me, because I never spoke to him,” Ngannou told Ariel Helwani. MMA watch. “When I saw his comment, I was like, ‘Where is this guy from?'” Then I checked my phone, called my team, like, “Did someone talk to this guy that I’m not aware of?” And everyone was… like, “No, we haven’t talked to that guy.” So I don’t know where that came from. That’s why I didn’t talk about him This guy is just a joke.
“At some point, he was promoting his show, his event. He’d do anything to get a little PR here and there, anything he could do. But I’ve never spoken to this guy, never asked him for anything, never reached out to him. Not to say We were interested—we weren’t—but he didn’t reach out, so he didn’t know if we were interested. That’s why I say some of the promoters out there are two-faced. Crazy stuff.”
Feldman wasn’t the only promoter to antagonize Nganu.
Earlier this month, ONE Championship president Chatri Sityodtong said his promotion had finally decided not to make a final offer to Ngannou due to “incompatibilities” in non-financial matters. But then again, Ngannou says that’s not how things really happened, and insists his meetings with ONE Championship came after he had already decided he would move forward with the PFL.
“I think Chatri was just performing,” Nganu said. “…I told him and Matt Hume I had the best offer from the PFL and I don’t think I’m going to make any negotiations with you guys. It was like last, six weeks before that. And he was like, ‘Oh, I can fly you to Singapore, I can To travel to Cameroon! I got this!’ it was all. I was like, that’s too much. I don’t know how to deal with this. How will you travel to Cameroon? For what purpose? I just told the guy the situation and then he just kept pushing. Then I sent it to my team, “I can’t take this pressure from Chatri.” Then keep pushing, keep pushing. … So I have to see him for respect. We talked, I respect the guy. Actually I love Chatri. Before this, I was like, I love this guy, I love his story. I even now wonder if this story is true. But I loved that story.
So we met in L.A. and I was honest before anything started. ‘Listen, here’s the thing. I told you this. I prefer PFL now.’ And then he said, ‘Why did you bring me here?’ “I respect you. And even if you sign with the PFL, one day comes you say, ‘I want to meet you, Francis.’ You didn’t say you wanted to meet me at work. You were with my team talking about work, and then you said you wanted to meet me. So it looks like it’s not work anymore, is not it?
“And then he started showing me all these things, screenshots — I think he showed me 13 screenshots — all these stats of how ONE FC is the second most watched game in sports. It has more YouTube views than the Premier League, than the NFL, than the American League. For professionals,” Ngannou continued. “He has a lot of those. I’m like, wait a minute. Anyway, that was the whole meeting. At one point I was like, OK, that’s fine, I respect this guy, and I took this meeting. I don’t want to be rude, but I was Just got off an 11 hour flight and had another flight to take back home I thought it would be an hour [meeting], and I find myself more than two hours. I have to drink three or four cups of coffee, listening to all those stats, how ONE FC in Asia, Asia is 4.6 billion people, they’re going to do it, they’ve shown me how ONE FC is going to blow up. I will be like Nelson Mandela. Brother, it was a great performance. I salute Chhatri for his performance.”
And the “performance” didn’t stop there. After Sityodtong’s pitch apparently fell on deaf ears, Ngannou said the promoter then asked him what he could do to change his mind, and that’s when Ngannou thought Sityodtong finally got the picture. Shortly thereafter, when Sityodtong made his statement, that angered “The Baddest Man on the Planet” a bit, even if it was still better than the situation with Feldman.
“You were respectful. You have a guy you admire and he was talking, even though you weren’t around, you were listening,” said Nganuu. “I was listening, I gave it time. … We talked. Nice – good. Then the next day Andrew sent me a screenshot of ONE FC deciding to withdraw his offer. I’m like, what offer are you talking about? No offer taken into account. No You can withdraw an offer that wasn’t accepted.”Not financially attached, I didn’t feel the energy.”Really? You sit there talking three hours and you don’t feel the energy? You can break off that meeting at any time.
“I know at the end of the day, I’m going out and I’m going to call him out if he does something about it. If he’s lying, I’m going to call him out all the way. That’s why the next day I started seeing, he turned on his own. It went from ‘pulling out’ to ‘Francis was asking too much.'” How do you pull off a deal someone was asking for too much? Which one is it? Which one is the truth? It can’t be both.
“I saw it and that’s when I thought, ‘Oh, this guy is a performer.'” “That’s when I post a tweet,”Some of those promoters out there are two-faced“. But at least for Chatri, I’ve talked to him. I can’t deny that. I’ve talked to him, I’ve met him in person, we’ve texted, but this guy is David Feldman, I don’t know that guy.”
Now, Ngannou doesn’t have to care about either. The latest PFL signing is targeting a return to the cage in 2024, and he still has his sights set on boxing later this year. And meanwhile, all those people, promoters and fans, who have something bad to say about him during his free agency, Ngannou has one thing to say to them.
“Maybe some people are waiting for me to lose,” Nganuu concluded. “All I can say is I’m sorry for them. I just have tissues for them to wipe their tears, because I’m winning.”