Just days after UFC boss Dana White sensationally revealed that the company had released heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou following a breakdown in negotiations over a new contract, the now-former UFC champion has shared his side of the story, refuting a lot of the claims White made in his post-fight press conference on Sunday (AEDT).
While speaking to the media following the promotion’s first event of 2023, White announced that the UFC had stripped Francis Ngannou of his heavyweight championship title as a result and scheduled a title fight at UFC 285 on March 5 (AEDT) between former UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones and former UFC interim heavyweight champion Cyril Gane.
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The 53-year-old business mogul also claimed that the deal offered to Ngannou would’ve made the 36-year-old the “highest-paid heavyweight in the history of the company”.
“I’ve told you guys this before, if you don’t want to be here, you don’t have to be,” White said on Sunday.
“I think Francis is in a place right now where he doesn’t want to take a lot of risk. He feels like he’s in a good position where he could fight lesser opponents and make more money.
“We’re going to let him do that, release him from his contract and give up our right to match.”
Dana cuts UFC Heavyweight Champion | 00:58
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However, both Francis and his coach have since come out and detailed their own version of events, painting a vastly different picture of the events which led to the split than the one the UFC boss portrayed to the media.
During an appearance on veteran MMA journalist Ariel Helwani’s show ‘The MMA Hour’ yesterday, Ngannou spoke for the first time following the announcement of the controversial split, pushing back against many of the claims his former boss Dana White had made about him during a post-fight press conference this past weekend.
“I saw those clips when it (the press conference) started and I knew already what was happening. I know that’s how they (the UFC) operate, I know their strategy so I’m not losing my sleep over this,” the Cameroon native said.
“I was willing to compromise over and over and over and over (again) but then I got to the point where I was like okay I understand that I do want this but guys give me a break, give me something. I’m not asking for the sky.
“I have heard people talking about money and obviously money is apart of it but it wasn’t all about money. I need some stuff and they (the UFC) will never talk about the stuff and it’s interesting how they kind of pick what (parts) they are going to talk about, they don’t talk about what the negotiation was (actually) about.
“They just talk about the money that they (would) give me that could’ve made me the biggest paid heavyweight in the (company’s) history … It’s all a narrative and they control that narrative, which cannot be proven (right or wrong), but I wish it could’ve worked.”
The knockout specialist went on to reveal the exact moment where it was decided that no agreement could be reached with UFC had actually occurred at the beginning of last week.
“Last Tuesday (they said) they have to make a fight March 4th and they have to announce that fight so they said let’s try one more time (to get a deal done),” Ngannou said.
“(We) get on the phone and I couldn’t say yes about something, there wasn’t a way that I would just let it by, it’s just a matter of principle and at that time I knew that okay this is it.
“They didn’t say it on the phone, they didn’t say this (the UFC stripping him and announcing his release) is what’s going to happen but I knew.”
Ngannou’s coach Eric Nicksack revealed in an earlier interview with Ariel Helwani the moment that he knew the end of Ngannou’s time in the UFC was near.
“We met with Dana (White) and Hunter (Campbell, UFC’s Chief Business Officer); me, Dana, Hunter, Francis. After the (Gane) fight, we had a great dinner, and things were going in the right direction. We got in the car, and Francis looks over at me and says, ‘If I sign this deal, if I do this without making any change, without doing all the things that I said I was going to do, I’m just another sell-out, and I refuse to do that’,” Nicksack said during a Monday appearance ‘The MMA Hour’.
“He goes, ‘I’m happy. I have more money than I ever imagined. I’m in a position that I’d never envisioned, and I have a stance where I can make a difference’.”
As for White’s claim that the deal the UFC was offering him, just on money alone, would’ve truly made him the highest paid heavyweight in the organisation’s history, Ngannou was coy as to whether he believed that to be true.
“I don’t know. See I don’t know what other heavyweights made. In order to know (whether I would’ve been the highest paid), I would have to know the salary the other heavyweights made,” he said.
“I don’t want that contract, the way that it’s structured, I don’t want it. Doesn’t matter how much is in that contract, I’m not (signing) that contract … because in that contract, I’m not free. In that contract, I’m not independent, I have no rights, I have no power. I hand over all the power to you guys and I have seen in the past how you can utilise your power on me and I don’t want that to happen again.”
Helwani then suggested that his sources had told him that Brock Lesnar had earned approximately $8 million ($A11.4m) for competing at UFC 200 and asked whether Ngannou was set to make more or less on the deal he was offered, to which the former champion revealed he was to make less than that for the proposed Jon Jones fight and that he had asked for a three fight deal with no extension clause. The France-based fighter also disclosed that he ideally wanted to fight Jon Jones twice as well as face off with Stipe Miocic across the course of the proposed contract.
Interestingly Ngannou shared the real sticking points which had emerged during the failed negotiations with the UFC, with many of these requests being on behalf of not just himself but all fighters within the organisation, despite him “knowing it couldn’t happen”.
“There was a lot of them. What I’ve learnt is that you don’t go to the table of a negotiation expecting to have everything you want but you at least want your partner, you want the other side, to show a willingness to at least try,” he said.
“I asked for a lot of things in the negotiations, doesn’t mean I was expecting all those things, but I was expecting at least maybe one or two of those things.
“(For example) I asked for the right of a sponsorship, which we have been ripped off (cause) we can’t have sponsorship, I asked for health insurance, I asked for someone to sit in on (UFC) board meetings who would advocate for the fighters but I couldn’t have those things that I asked for. I just wanted them to know that those were things that I do want and I at least wanted them to take those things into consideration.”
When pressed further by Helwani as to whether the UFC considered any of these requests, the France-based fighter insisted that the UFC considered none of these as they said no because “they don’t do business like that”.
This revelation is likely to reignite the debate over fighter pay and conditions, with many – most notably Jake Paul – coming out in criticism of the UFC for their lack of fair pay, non-existent health insurance, and the absence of a fighters union or collective bargaining agreements.
As for whether Ngannou he thinks UFC fighters will ever get these things, his forecast for the future was bleak.
“I doubt it, it’s really tough and the problem is that (as) time goes by the UFC just gets bigger and bigger and (the) fighter gets smaller and smaller. They (the fighters) are losing position,” he said.
“Five years, 10 years ago the fighter was in the better position than they are right now and I’m afraid that five or 10 years from now, they will be in a worse position than they are right now …
“You need to provide for your family, you don’t have a choice. Fighters they don’t have any choice, they don’t have any power.”
Despite White’s comments and the unfortunate end to his reign as the UFC heavyweight champion, the scariest fighter in the history of the division says he is still open to the idea of one day returning to fight again for the company.
“I don’t take any of this personal at all … One thing that I have also learnt in life is never say never so down the road maybe,” Ngannou said.
“I don’t know, but one thing that I (do) know is that even in that situation, it (a return) has to be on my terms.”
