Francis Ngannou has made a name for himself in two different sports.
The Cameroon fighter has main evented cards in both the MMA and boxing world.
A former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Heavyweight Champion, Ngannou is now signed to the Professional Fighters League (PFL).
When he first made the transition from the UFC to boxing, many thought it was just a quick cash grab.
Whether that was the case or not, he put up a highly commendable performance against Tyson Fury – a fight that many thought the MMA star won.
Unfortunately, a dismantling by Anthony Joshua has put paid to his boxing career.
But for a while, he was being touted as a potential threat to the boxing heavyweight scene.
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One of the factors that seemingly aided the career change of Francis Ngannou was due to money.
Boxing has become flush with cash since the interception of Saudi in the sport and, with both of Ngannou’s fights in being held in Saudi, it’s assumed that he made a lot of money to leave the UFC for those fights.
UFC CEO and president Dana White has responded to those claims and has stated that they’re not true.
Speaking to the press after the season premiere of Dana White’s Contender Series, White answered a question from an interviewer asking why he didn’t mention at the time that Ngannou would have made more fighting Jon Jones than going into boxing.
In a rather prickly response, White claims that he didn’t care enough about it at the time but it’s a fact.
This followed a video released by MMA reporter Kevin Iole in which White doubles down on the fact that Francis Ngannou would have made more in the UFC than boxing.
“That’s not necessarily true,” White said.
“That’s the bulls*** publicly that people believe, but that’s not the truth. Total bulls***. Total bulls***.
“That’s that whole myth that makes everybody go, ‘Oh, let’s f*cking go to boxing!’ and all this bullshit.
“Boxing don’t work. Boxing does not work.
“What makes it work? You need a Saudi f*cking trillionaire to make f*cking fights.
“And even Saudi trillionaires get tired of the f*cking bullshit.
“It’s all a f*cking myth. It’s all a myth.
“Like the whole statement you just made is absolutely positively not true.
“It’s those types of f*cking statements and those type of quotes by the media that makes all this shit.
“All these fights are happening, it takes a Saudi f*cking trillionaire.
“Every f*cking guy that tries to do the boxing thing, they all end up losing shit-loads of f*cking money.
“The model doesn’t work.
“A Saudi unlimited amount of money pops up and that’s what makes these fights happen, and even guys with that kind of money get f*cking tired of the bullshit.”
Clearly, Dana White does not hold back on this.
Whether his claims are true or not, it seems that Francis Ngannou is content with his decision to move away from the UFC.
With a new start in the PFL, Ngannou seems to have found another space to fight that is not under the umbrella of White’s organisation.
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