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Francis Ngannou was calm, cool, and collected during the PFL’s fight week press conference for their “Battle of the Giants” pay-per-view in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Ngannou is coming back to MMA after two losses in boxing — one, a razor thin decision loss to Tyson Fury that made the world sit up and take attention, and the other a crushing KO loss to Anthony Joshua. Now he faces Renan Ferreira in his first MMA bout since January 2022 when he defended the UFC heavyweight belt against Ciryl Gane.
“I think my fight is going to be … I would not say a return to MMA,” Ngannou said of his PFL debut. “But it’s a big night for me to make a statement again, to discover myself, and to prove what I’m made of.”
After facing big names in UFC and boxing, Ngannou said he’s not overlooking Ferreira, who comes into the fight a relative unknown.
“As the challenge that is ahead of me, he is the biggest,” the Cameroonian said. “I’m going to have a 6’8” guy across the octagon that I’m going to take out, so he’s the biggest challenge so far.”
“I would say he’s definitely on top of the line, but I think in my entire life my biggest opponent has always been me, and I managed to go through that big opponent all the time. And on Saturday night, I will give him for his money, so he should get ready.”
“This an MMA fight, so everything will be on display,” he said. “We get prepared for everything, and everything will be on display. I think on his hand too, he might be preparing something because as I say, he’s a jiu jitsu black belt and he’s not underestimating my punching power as well.”
Asked if he was expecting a 25 second KO or a 25 minute scrap, Ngannou passed on the opportunity to hype up a quick finish.
“Let’s just say I’m going to fight strategically, according to how the fight presents itself,” he said. “In my career, only once I went for the knockout … and it didn’t work out for me. The other times where I had 25 second knockouts, it wasn’t planned.”
“So let’s keep it authentic. I’m not planning a 25 second knockout or whatever. I know I have 25 minutes so I’m going to lay my gameplan down over that 25 minutes to win the fight.”
