Francis Ngannou casually strolled down a hallway in the bowels Madison Square Garden en route to his seat at ringside to watch UFC 268. The heavyweight champion stared straight ahead, ignoring the three men to his left who had quickly noticed his presence.
Nassourdine Imavov was in the hallway with his coach, Fernand Lopez, and his teammate, Ciryl Gane. Imavov was waiting to make his walk to the Octagon for his fight with Edmen Shahbazyan.
It was like a “Saturday Night Live” skit, as Gane and Lopez grinned in amazement when Ngannou strolled by as if they weren’t there.
That 17-second clip has become the basis for much of the promotion of the fight between Ngannou and Gane, the UFC’s interim heavyweight champion, on Saturday (10 p.m. ET, ESPN+ PPV) at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, in the main event of UFC 270.
A great heavyweight fight tends to get the masses excited, and this one has the potential to be great.
“It’s not like this is one of those fights where you have this knockout artist against this jiu-jitsu guy and the jiu-jitsu guy’s got to get him to the ground,” UFC president Dana White said to Yahoo Sports. “This is striker versus striker: Raw power versus technique.”
That narrative, though, has taken a backseat to discussions about Ngannou’s unhappiness with the UFC, which center on disagreements over his pay, his work rate and his ability to take a boxing match.
It’s been sad because after Ngannou won the title in March with a knockout of Stipe Miocic, a long, successful reign seemed at hand. Ngannou was brilliant at the post-fight news conference following his win over Miocic. He came across as a likable and compelling personality who had freakish punching power chief among his extraordinary physical gifts.
Ngannou indicated that night he wanted to come back quickly, and mentioned potentially fighting in June. The UFC says it offered him bouts in June and then in August, but Ngannou wasn’t ready.
Ngannou said the UFC hasn’t offered him fights, which is why he’s been relatively inactive in the last two years.
He fought three times in seven months, knocking out Curtis Blaydes on Nov. 24, 2018, in Beijing, China; knocking out Cain Velasquez in 26 seconds on Feb. 17, 2019, in Phoenix; and stopping Junior dos Santos in 71 seconds on June 29, 2019.
But it was another 11 months until he fought Jairzinho Rozenstruik, 10 months until the Miocic fight for the title and then nine months until Saturday’s bout.
Ngannou placed the blame squarely on the UFC’s shoulders and said it didn’t offer him fights.
“Even before I fought Stipe in March, I had fought twice and I always wanted to fight [more frequently],” Ngannou told Yahoo Sports. “What happened [in the past nine months] is the same as had happened in the previous two years. It’s not in my control. It’s not in my control. Obviously, there has been a little bit of disagreement, but it’s not in my control.”
A UFC source said the company began trying to do a new deal with him around the time he fought Velasquez, and came to terms with agent Marquel Martin of CAA. But after Martin sent an email saying he accepted the deal, the source said that another agent at CAA, Nez Balelo, reached out to the UFC and said they weren’t accepting the deal.
According to the source, the UFC told Ngannou that it had to put on the rubber match between Miocic and former champion Daniel Cormier before it gave Ngannou a shot at the title, and that Ngannou chose to wait and not fight.
Ngannou vehemently denied that.
“I didn’t choose to wait [for the Miocic-Cormier winner],” Ngannou said. “I didn’t have a choice. I always asked for a fight.”
While he waited for Miocic-Cormier III to happen, which was delayed by injuries, Ngannou said he asked the UFC to fight Shamil Abdurakhimov, who was ranked 10th at the time.
Ngannou adamantly denied waiting and said, “That’s wrong. That’s wrong. We were sending emails and text messages asking for a fight.”
The acrimony between the sides is so deep that they can’t even agree on the fight’s narrative. The UFC is painting the fight as a showdown between former friends who trained together who are now enemies.
Both men were at one time coached by Fernand Lopez, who still coaches Gane. But Ngannou said there never was a relationship with Gane and it’s incorrect to refer to them as training partners.
“We don’t even know each other,” Ngannou said of he and Gane. This supposed personal [conflict] between us is just drama that they are making. But personally, we don’t have a personal things between us.”
Ngannou said he doesn’t know the future, but said, “Every fight could be your last UFC fight because they have control of you.”
Dana White: Ngannou vs. Gane ‘speaks for itself’
White, though, isn’t concerned the dispute will hurt the interest in the show. The Honda Center is already sold out, White said, and will produce an arena-record gate of over $5 million.
He said early returns on the pay-per-view sales have been encouraging.
“This happens all the time,” White said of the disagreement with Ngannou. “This is nothing new for me. Over the last 20 years we get these situations sometimes. But whether you take all the negativity and drama that surrounds the fight, it’s all part of it. It’s all part of the storyline and all part of the fight.
“I mean, you have the bad blood between these two. They both came from the same camp, the same trainer, all that stuff. But at the end of the day, the fight speaks for itself. You got Francis Ngannou, who is the heavyweight champion of the UFC. The guy’s on a five-fight win streak [and has a] 100 percent finish rate, taking on Ciryl Gane, who is undefeated at 10-0 and arguably the greatest striker in the history of the heavyweight division.”
So this could be Ngannou’s final UFC fight, or it may not be. Not even Ngannou and White know for sure what will happen.
The only thing we know for certain is that a pair of big heavyweights who have established themselves as the best in the world are going to going at it over 25 minutes for the title. The remainder is a story for another day.