Why did Dana White choose now to reveal that he once wished to cut Francis Ngannou from the promotion after the now-lineal heavyweight champion lost his first two fights back in 2018?
🚨 Dana White goes in on Francis Ngannou, says he wanted to cut him after the Derrick Lewis fight🤔
▪️“I was going to cut Francis when he lost two in a row. I was going to cut him. Someone around here begged me not to do it. So it wouldn’t have mattered to me one way or… pic.twitter.com/krMDa2eYRj
— AFeldmanMMA (@afeldMMA) October 24, 2024
For years Francis Ngannou was beholden to the UFC contract structure. Despite being the best heavyweight in the world, and lineal champion, since 2021, Ngannou was on a mere $600,000 per fight salary, with a contract that got artificially extended simply because he became champion.
Despite being the scariest heavyweight in the world for years, the biggest puncher the sport had ever seen, he got no raise for dethroning the GOAT, Stipe Miocic, in 2021.
Francis grew disillusioned with the UFC, began to publicly call for change to their contracts, and specifically was adamant that he would not sign any new contract if he could not go and box, like Conor McGregor.
For many fighters, like Kamaru Usman and Dricus du Plessis, going to boxing is a pipe dream, they are big names in MMA but not on that level. However, Francis had men like Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, and Deontay Wilder publicly interested in fighting him.
Francis ‘The Predator’ Ngannou became one of the biggest things in the world. When with the UFC he appeared in a ‘Fast & Furious’ movie, won an ESPY award, inspired millions with the harrowing story of his journey from Cameroon to France to become a fighter, and was recognized on big platforms by yet more of the most famous athletes and celebrities in the world.
So when Francis waited out the contract, left the UFC for a rare big name free agency, signed with their competitor PFL for more than the UFC offered, and was still able to land two of the biggest names in boxing as opponents in Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury. PFL also made him a part of the ownership, giving him control of their UFC Africa venture, following in the footsteps of UFC Europe and UFC MENA.
Ngannou further succeeded by making more to fight Tyson Fury than his whole mixed martial arts career. He arguably deserved the decision to go his way in that fight, accomplishing something no other MMA fighter had when he knocked down the boxing world champion. He parlayed that into a $20 million payday to face Anthony Joshua.
Though he lost that second boxing bout badly, he will make at least more than what he would have with the UFC and has set his family up for life.
Is it any wonder that Dana White chooses now to slander him?
Although the pre- and post-fight had a somber quality due to the weight of the loss of Ngannou’s young son recently, White chooses to once again try to bring the man down just for making money without him.
The UFC had the Jon Jones fight in their grasp but would not pay the LHW GOAT Jones his asking price. Then after two years, Ngannou’s contract expired, and he was able to move on to make historic amounts of money for him.
He did what most MMA fighters only dream of, in a sport where the fighters now only get 13-14.5% of the revenue split from the top promotion’s coffers, he got his, kept his sanity, and secured a generational amount of wealth for him in the future.
Maybe, if business practices change to be more financially beneficial to fighters, we will see more incredible athletes like Ngannou choose it, instead of higher-paying sports like NFL, NBA, MLB, or European/Asian football.
When fighters get proportionally rewarded for the abuse their bodies take, then the sport of mixed martial arts will have the impact those sports do, and the best will truly fight the best, instead of incredible fights slipping away like the triad of fights that could – but likely never will – take place between Francis Ngannou, Jon Jones, and Tom Aspinall.
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