Francis Ngannou earned every bit of praise he received after taking Tyson Fury to a razor-close split decision in his professional boxing debut but that fight also severely limited his options coming back to MMA.
That’s according to UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier, who offered nothing but a glowing review when addressing Ngannou’s fight against Fury where he shocked the world with a knockdown in the third round and nearly beating the best heavyweight in boxing. In the aftermath of that fight, Ngannou began weighing his options on what comes next but it’s looking more and more like he might return to boxing because there just aren’t many good options available to him in MMA.
Despite calls from Ngannou’s camp for a showdown with UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones in some sort of co-promotion with the UFC, Cormier knows that’s never going to happen.
“Look, when Tyson Fury and Francis fought, it was massive,” Cormier told MMA Fighting. “It was massive for Francis financially and for his profile, which is the best thing that could happen. But the UFC’s just going to move on. I know from being there and being involved in just kind of knowing that nobody’s disappointed.
“If anything, it just really does help elevate the sport and I think that’s what’s important, at least to me. I said I thought Francis lost. That by no means, means I am hating on Francis. I just scored rounds a different way but boy, what a performance he had. He looked like he belonged. I was so happy for him. I was so proud of him and it was just amazing to see.”
Even UFC CEO Dana White was stunned to learn that Ngannou managed to go all 10 rounds with Fury but he’s not going to bend over backwards just for the chance to get a piece of his next fight.
Like it or not, the UFC is bigger than Ngannou and the promotion has never really sweated losing any single fighter on the roster through free agency or retirement.
“The UFC has built itself on when one guy goes on, it’s like insert someone new and they will become a star,” Cormier said. “It’s happened since the dawn of time.
“When Chuck Liddell left, everybody’s like what’s going to happen now? Because he was the face of the UFC. Here comes Jon Jones and Ronda Rousey and then Ronda’s going to step away, what’s next? Conor McGregor shows up. Conor McGregor’s gone now and you’ve got guys like Israel Adesanya and guys like Francis. Francis became one of those guys the shows were built around because you could market him.”
With a new broadcast rights deal on the horizon along with huge sponsorship deals in place, the UFC continues producing record-breaking revenue and just recently merged with World Wrestling Entertainment to become a company valued at over $21 billion.
In other words, the UFC won’t stop moving forward just because Ngannou is gone.
“I believe the mixed martial arts community as a whole should be celebrating Francis because he represented the entire sport very well in an unfamiliar territory,” Cormier said. “[But] this new television deal is going to be astronomical. The $100 million deal with Bud Light. Buying the WWE. I think we’re at a point now where those types of rivalries don’t matters as much to the UFC as they did when it was a smaller organization building into what it is.
“This is a $5 billion company, we’re talking like the Dallas Cowboys. We’ve got to stop thinking of the UFC as our little UFC that it was prior. I don’t think that’s the case anymore.”
As far as what might be available for Ngannou if he returns to MMA and the Jones fight obviously won’t happen, Cormier knows that’s a tough question to answer. Even PFL founder Donn Davis admitted as much when addressing Ngannou’s future in MMA after the organization inked him to a multi-fight deal after he exited the UFC.
With most top-ranked heavyweights already on the UFC roster, Bellator heavyweight champion Ryan Bader is probably the biggest name available but even that match just doesn’t make much sense to Cormier. It’s why the former two-division UFC champion believes Ngannou’s immediate future will take him back in boxing rather than MMA.
“Honestly, Ryan would not fight Francis right,” Cormier said when addressing a potential fight between Ngannou and Bader. “Because we’ve seen Ryan in there with big punchers and when he fights the big punchers, he gets nervous, he takes bad shots and he puts himself in bad positions.
“I wouldn’t want to see that but that would honestly be the biggest fight they could make for him. Biggest fight would be like Ryan Bader or if they try to make him fight Fedor [Emelianenko], which I would not want to see because Fedor should not be fighting.”
The good news for Ngannou is that he took home a sizable payday for his fight against Fury, which means he can take his time deciding what comes next. Maybe that’s a boxing match against someone like Anthony Joshua or Deontay Wilder or perhaps Ngannou just sits on his stacks of cash and waits for something more attractive to come along.
“There just isn’t the name value to stand alongside him right now outside of boxing,” Cormier said. “[But] when you make the money he made, he can sit around for a while.”
