Francis Ngannou has done things his way in his combat sports career.

The former UFC heavyweight champion made waves when he left the promotion in early 2023 in pursuit of his fighting freedom. Dreaming of boxing professionally, Ngannou made that a reality when he signed with the PFL and was allowed to seek options outside MMA, leading him to a massive fantasy matchup against the all-time great Tyson Fury.

Ngannou, 37, performed so valiantly that his official split decision defeat was nearly disregarded by all who saw the match. “The Predator” followed up his impressive debut by landing a clash against another elite heavyweight, Anthony Joshua, this past March. That pairing had a much more devastating outcome for Ngannou, who lost via a second-round knockout. However, the circumstances weren’t the best in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, according to Ngannou.

“We get into fight week, and every time we’re going to do media, they’re going to pick me up and then I get there and have to wait an hour and a half before [media] arrives,” Ngannou said on The Joe Rogan Experience (h/t MMA Mania). “On the third day of fight week, [striking coach] Dewey Cooper started to get very mad, ‘This is what they do to get fighters tired!’ But at the time I didn’t know what was going on. So, I’m like ‘No, come on, relax. It’s okay.’ I didn’t know until we get to fight day.”

The Joshua matchup was Ngannou’s second in Saudi Arabia after he battled Fury six months earlier, so he wasn’t a complete stranger to the operation. He also made it a point to prepare with extra time in the environment. Regardless, something was still off once it was time to enter the ring.

“Fight day, we receive an email,” Ngannou recalled. “Pickup time: 10:30 from the hotel. And when they say 10:30, by 10:20 there’s a car at your door waiting. The supposed fight time is between midnight to 1:00. We get to the arena at 10:45. A producer comes into the locker room, says, ‘Oh, guy, we are running late on the broadcast. Now we’re gonna go around 1:45.’ I’m like okay, 1:45. It’s 10:45. Three hours. Okay.

“It was around 1:30 that [Joshua] arrived. I’m like ... so we supposed to fight at 1:45? He’s arriving at 1:30 ... we leave the room at 3:30. I have been in Saudi Arabia almost two months training to fight between midnight and 1:00. But even at that time, I didn’t know what was happening. It was only after everything. Because I got to the point that I was so tired, I was in the locker room hitting mitts, then sitting down, falling asleep. Then I tell [coach] Eric Nicksick there’s something wrong. I’m asleep. I feel like I wanna sleep. Like, I’m sweating. But we just keep going.”

Ngannou’s most recent win came when he defended the UFC heavyweight title via a unanimous decision over Ciryl Gane at UFC 270 in January 2022. Surgery sidelined Ngannou for the entirety of that year after he battled through a badly injured knee in preparation for and during the fight.

Yet to debut in the PFL cage, Ngannou noted how he expects to fight in MMA again before another boxing match. When that will be isn’t official, but the former champion says a targeted clash with PFL heavyweight king Renan Ferreira is being discussed for October.

When it comes to the Joshua loss, Ngannou doesn’t want to take away from his well-respected adversary. Things just didn’t go as smoothly as he’d have preferred.

“Not to say Anthony Joshua couldn’t beat me,” Ngannou said. “I think if there’s somebody that you can lose against, he’s the guy, he’s one of the best doing it. This is definitely not on him, because he wasn’t the guy that was sending all those emails, organizing. So I’m not blaming him for anything. But the organization, they did quite some stuff that wasn’t fair.

“His team was part of the organization because it was Queensbury [Promotions] and Matchroom [Boxing], those emails were coming to me from them. Those were the people that were sending the schedule, and every day they send everything, the pickup time, the program, the schedule.”

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LET’S WATCH

The MMA Hour.

UFC 304 Media Day.

Embedded 3.

UFC Connected: The Brits.

Nothing like a good head kick.

Arnold Allen’s UFC 304 Fight Camp.

Liz Carmouche All Access.

Invicta 56 trailer.

Fancy Breakdowns.

Reckless Poatan.

LISTEN UP

No Bets Barred. MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew and Conner Burks discuss how Leon Edwards and Tom Aspinall can retain their titles on home soil at UFC 304.

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Rivals.

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FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Rongzhu (25-5) vs. Chris Padilla (14-6); UFC Vegas 97, Sept. 7

FINAL THOUGHTS

I love the concept of the “Pez Dispenser” submission. That is all. Now I want candy...

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