2 weeks Ago By Uncrowned
Francis Ngannou isn't losing sleep over Dana White's thoughts on him in 2024. MMA relationships between fighters and promoters rarely end peacefully or with both sides on the same page. Unfortunately for the former UFC heavyweight champion turned PFL superstar Ngannou, his old boss has nothing positive to say.
That's far from the end of the world for "The Predator." He's done quite well for himself by gambling on his career and giving up his crown atop the promotion's heaviest weight class. Ngannou, 38, left the UFC at the start of 2023 amid failed negotiations to have a more free-flowing contract that allowed him to compete in boxing.
This ultimately dissolved hopes of a superfight with the all-time great light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, which had already hit a standstill. White has largely been critical of Ngannou ever since, and again renewed those attacks following Ngannou's recent first-round knockout of Renan Ferreira at PFL: Battle of the Giants. Ngannou responded Friday on .
“I think Dana’s trying to make things up to buy good faith in the position that he has lost,” Ngannou said. “Dana has lost in this situation and he cannot stand it. Bro, I won everything.
I left. We’ve been apart almost two years and the guy is still out there, he can’t live without it, and hounding me. Regardless of everything that happened, I’m not about him.
“I went out there, did a fight, had a great fight for my son’s memory, but the guy can’t stand [it]. I don’t know what his problem is. He can make everything up as he wants, that’s his problem.
He needs to make peace with himself. “You could’ve just said, ‘We couldn’t find an agreement, or couldn’t come up with a deal, good luck to him. That’s it, good for him,’ and we continue our lives,” he continued.
“What’s the problem here? But I think the problem is that he can’t handle this loss. I’m sure he’s been praying for my downfall, but I keep doing my thing and rising as soon as I left the UFC. In any senses, I’m more than what I was.
” White doesn't seem keen on anything Ngannou these days. At a PowerSlap media scrum earlier this week (h/t ), White claimed their separation was imminent and nearly happened years earlier. White stated that he wanted to boot Ngannou from the roster after the future champion's last two MMA losses, unanimous decision defeats to Stipe Miocic and Derrick Lewis in 2018, and also repeated an assertion that Ngannou left the UFC solely out of fear of what a loss to Jones would do for his career.
“Francis is all about the money,” White said. “Francis left because he knew that if he fought Jon Jones and didn’t win, it would hurt his chances of making the money that he wanted to make. But realistically, his deal was bigger here.
His deal was bigger here if he stayed in the UFC. I think I've told this story a million times. They can deny it all they want, why the f*ck would I lie? What do I care? It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.
“I was going to cut Francis when he lost two in a row. I was going to cut him. Somebody around here begged me not to do it.
So it wouldn’t have mattered to me, one way or the other. There’s a much deeper story to this whole thing, and he would have made more money if he stayed in the UFC.” The UFC's heavyweight division has seen Jones rise to become the champion in Ngannou's absence after defeating Ciryl Gane in March 2023.
Tom Aspinall has since won interim gold but waits behind the former two-time champion Stipe Miocic — who last fought when he dropped the title to Ngannou in March 2021 — to fight Jones at UFC 309 on Nov. 16. Ngannou has long called for the Jones fight and hopes of possibly putting it together have from Ngannou and PFL.
Jones even complimented the first-round knockout delivered by Ngannou against Ferreira in his PFL debut. Ngannou seemingly dismissed White as a "bully" on social media Friday and amplified a 2021 video of White using a similar tactic to claim to the media that Jones was avoiding a fight with Ngannou. Freedom isn't free, but remember that the benefits always outweigh the price.
Don't let the bully talk you out of it. 😉💪🏽 — Francis Ngannou (@francis_ngannou) Divert attention to the real matter by manipulating the narrative. Lol — Francis Ngannou (@francis_ngannou) Before Ngannou's successful PFL debut, he entered the ring for matches against boxing giants Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
Despite losing both, the first by split decision and the second a second-round knockout, Ngannou is estimated to have earned hefty fight purses from both matches. Ngannou also negotiated a clause into his current PFL contract that guarantees his opponents a purse of at least $2 million. Ngannou has comfortably moved on from White and lets it be known in every instance.
He just doesn't understand why these types of comments keep surfacing. “Which money is he talking about? The money that he owes me?,” Ngannou said. “Remember, all of this ended with [the UFC] saying, ‘Oh, we’ll back pay you from the money that we owe you for the Stipe and Ciryl Gane fight,’ all of that.
They never back-paid me. “Now I have made more money than I have ever made in the UFC — I would say twice the money that I could have ever made in my entire UFC career if I had continued in the UFC. .
.. But either way, if I had made less money, if I’m not making enough money that I could’ve made in the UFC, that would be my problem.
Why is he so pissed about me not making that much money? Like, come on man, live your life.”.
