Ngannou still blames Dana White for a Jon Jones fight not happening, saying it was only ever offered as part of a ‘trap’ to keep him in UFC.
Francis Ngannou isn’t losing any sleep over the fact that he’ll probably never get to fight Jon Jones and determine who the true Baddest Man on the Planet is.
Former UFC heavyweight champion Ngannou left the promotion in early 2022 after refusing to sign a restrictive new contract. Soon after that happened, Jones returned from his own contract dispute to move up to heavyweight and capture the vacant belt. Much hay has been made arguing over whose fault it is that a Jones vs. Ngannou fight never came together. “The Predator” still puts it down to UFC CEO Dana White.
“I think it’s something that could potentially happen,” Ngannou told Sportsbook Review before adding “If you can get past Dana White, it could happen. That’s a massive obstacle.”
“But personally, I don’t care. I’m doing well. I’m doing my stuff at my pace. I don’t care. That won’t change my sleep for me. It would be okay. I have tried to fight Jon Jones for four years, since I fought Jairzinho Rozenstruik back in 2020. I’ve been trying to fight Jon Jones, and then they were holding it out like a trap until the moment that I was about to leave. And then they said, ‘Okay, here’s the Jon Jones fight.’ But it was bait. I felt they were very tricky.”
Ngannou wasn’t shy about calling out the UFC for their tricky tactics. Once it became clear that he wasn’t willing to re-sign with the promotion, he says they slow-rolled his remaining fights to one bout a year. The contract they offered him paid big bucks, but only if he remained champion. And Francis didn’t like how the UFC kept pushing false narratives about him to the public.
“Honestly, I think there’s a lot of big fights out there,” he continued. “Yes, Jon Jones would be a great fight, a fantastic fight. I have always hoped for that fight, [but] my hope and my expectation for that fight has faded over time. But there’s still big fights out there. How big was my fight against Tyson Fury? How big do you think a second Battle of the Baddest will be?”
“Turki Alalshikh doesn’t need Dana White to do a massive fight,” Ngannou concluded. “He needs Dana White for the Ngannou — Jon Jones fight, but he doesn’t need Dana White. He now has control over the boxing promotion. There’s so many options out there.”
The current option Francis and Turki are looking at is Deontay Wilder, and that’s a pretty decent option. The bloom has come off the rose a bit for both Ngannou and Wilder. Ngannou was trounced by Anthony Joshua in his last boxing bout, while Wilder’s last two performances were so bad it has everyone questioning if he’s still got that dawg in him.
We say what better way to find out than to put the hardest puncher in MMA in the ring with him? As Tyson Fury learned, Ngannou is capable of taking over even against the best if they aren’t honed in on fight night. And after watching Ngannou a first round knockout of Renan Ferreira in PFL, it’s clear “The Predator” is still as motivated as ever.