Even with a severely injured knee, reigning Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Francis Ngannou held onto his title Saturday (Jan. 22) at UFC 270 inside the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
After five intense rounds, judges announced that Ngannou (17-3) was the victor by unanimous decision. His opponent, and former teammate, Ciryl Gane (10-1) suffered the first loss of his promising career.
While the first Cameroon-born UFC champion is on top of his game, his desire to ink a new contract and participate in events outside of his sport looms heavily.
After the match, UFC President Dana White was not there to deliver the heavyweight champion belt to Ngannou like he traditionally does for belt deciding matches. White’s absence, as noted by SB Nation, was looked at as a snub and “another sign of the rift between promotion and champion.”
The UFC President voiced his issue with Ngannou in an interview with Jim Rome earlier this week.
“You are talking about you don’t want to fight under your contract, he gets a piece of pay-per-view (PPV) like all the other champions do,” White said at the time. “You worry about all of these other things; ‘I want to box Tyson Fury, I want to do this, I want to do that,’ you’re the underdog on Saturday. You are not some huge 10:1 favorite. Focus on beating Ciryl Gane. Win this fight and then you can talk about the possibility of other things.”
After Saturday’s (Jan. 22) win, the 6’4” bruiser, nicknamed “The Predator,” was in a position to talk. However, White was nowhere to be found.
Ngannou has finished out the last fight on his contract, but due to a champion’s clause, he’s contractually binded for an additional three fights or until December, according to SB Nation.
Mgannou said he didn’t know why White skipped the end of his match and press conference. “You’ll have to ask him,” he told reporters . “No, I did not have anything to do about that. I think that was their decision, I was about to ask about that, too.”
“He didn’t come to the press conference?” Ngannou questioned. “Ah, well, I didn’t know that. Well, it’s been a long time that I’ve been wondering about my future in the company, so … nothing has changed, I’m still in the same position.”
Throughout the past four years, Ngannou has fought just once a year. While the MMA fighter said he’s content with that, he is aggressively eyeing a bout with heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury — who taunted him on social media after his fight with Gane.
“Well, it’s been a long time and a lot of things have been going on,” Ngannou told SB Nation. “So at this point, I think my feelings don’t matter. I been feeling a lot of things in the past year, I expressed my willingness to stay in the UFC, to have a contract, just to be respected. And the only reason we’re here I think is because at some point I wasn’t respected.
“It could have taken way less to get this deal done but he went to power position and it kind of get everyone frustrated, get me frustrated,” he continued. “Lost the feeling, the desire of doing things. I get in this sport — I didn’t grow up dreaming about this sport. I just got into it because it was fun and all this stuff. Then you get to the point where you find another part of the sport which is not fun. Which is frustrating. It kind of like mess with your mind.”
White may have dodged the tough questions at UFC 270, but eventually he will have to address Ngannou’s future within the UFC.
For now, Ngannou seems confident with his place in UFC. He told SB Nation that he sent “a message” last night. “I am the champion, and I remain the champion,” he said. “Independent of everything that’s going on, in the end I’m the boss, and I proved that tonight.”
Watch highlights from Ngannou’s matchup with Gain below: