For anyone remotely interested in combat sports, the headline ‘Jon Jones vs Francis Ngannou’ has been on everyone’s lips ever since for close to a decade, ever since the towering Cameroonian proved he was perhaps the scariest man to ever step foot inside the octagon aside from, of course, Jon Jones. This is the fight everyone wants to see, and yet, for some reason, it’s not happening. But if you ask Ngannou, that’s not because of him, “Of course, I want this fight. But it’s not up to me. It’s up to the UFC. So ask them.”
So the question remains: why isn’t the UFC making this happen?
When asked whether Riyadh Season could lead to co-promotion by the UFC, Dana White expressed his respect for Turki Alalshikh and said, “We’ll see what the future holds.” pic.twitter.com/vEfLaaMEd5
— MMA Fighting (@MMAFighting) June 30, 2024
Dana White’s answer is annoyingly ambiguous, although he still praised Turki Alalshikh, the mastermind behind the lucrative Riyadh Season, and their ability to put on some incredible fights. Now that Ngannou is returning to the MMA cage later this month to challenge Renan Ferreira for the PFL Heavyweight Championship on October 19, one person who remains optimistic for this dream fight is Ngannou’s head coach, Eric Nicksick from XTreme Couture, home of UFC legend, Randy Couture.
“I’m very optimistic when it comes to these things,” said Nicksick in an interview. “And I think money talks…and you get the right people behind you. Obviously we have a good relationship with Saudi, and I know Dana and UFC are working well with Saudi, so money talks. No disrespect to Dana, but he has a boss as well. So somebody tells him, ‘Hey man, this is a lot of money. We’re taking this. Set your ego aside.'”
“We’ll see, we’ll see,” Jones laughed ambiguously.
At the same event, PFL founder and co-chairman, Donn Davis, said, “Mark my words, by 2025, Jon Jones will fight Francis Ngannou in the PFL. The fans want to see it. I want to see it. So it’s all up to Dana White if he’ll let this happen. And if the fight doesn’t happen, then we know that is all because of Dana.”
It appears Nicksick is right: set your ego aside, Dana.
The wait is almost over ⏳
? ????? ??????? ?????? for the #PFLSuperFights Heavyweight World Championship ?
?? @francis_ngannou ? @MmaProblema ??
[ #BraceForImpact | Sat, Oct 19th | 4PM ET ] pic.twitter.com/EK850pfyzk
— PFL (@PFLMMA) October 1, 2024
Another reason for White’s reluctance may be that all fingers are pointed at the UFC president for, again, slighting fighters on pay, as Ngannou has reportedly made multi-million dollar paydays from both of his boxing outings, which was the catalyst for him abandoning his UFC contract in the first place.
But ever on the defensive, White rebuked the claims, stating, “It’s not really true. That’s bulls***. Total bulls***. That’s that whole myth that makes everyone go, ‘ah, let’s f***ing go to boxing.’ It’s f***ing bulls***. Boxing don’t work. Boxing doesn’t f***ing work. It takes a f***ing Saudi trillionaire to make boxing work.”
Francis undoubtedly has his work cut out for him later this month against Renan Ferreira, but assuming he gets past the gargantuan Brazilian, there really is only one fight fans across the world are begging to see. So perhaps we should all keep our fingers crossed for this Saudi trillionaire to make it happen.
