Francis Ngannou blames ‘promotional mismanagement’ for heavyweight MMA’s decline

WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 23: Francis Ngannou looks on during the PFL 2024 Playoffs at The Anthem on August 23, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images) | Getty Images

The UFC heavyweight division has been a bit of a mess for the past few years, ever since Francis Ngannou relinquished the title and left the promotion for free agency. Don’t blame Franny, though. According to “The Predator,” that’s the fault of the fight promoters.

Ngannou discussed this plus a number of other interesting topics with The Schmo in the lead-up to his big Netflix fight on the May 16th Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano undercard.

“Well, I think there is a lot of, I would say, mismanagement,” he said on the state of heavyweight MMA. “There is a lot of mismanagement that sometimes gets stuff screwed up, and then that’s where we are today. You see, even now, there’s a lot of heavyweights out there like Tom Aspinall. He’s having troubles with this. I think there’s a mismanagement. You see all these situations that don’t come and entertain.”

“When I say mismanagement, I wasn’t talking about, like, managers,” he added. “I was talking mostly about the promotion. So I think there’s something like that out there, which is not right.”

As for how Ngannou has decided to manage himself moving forward, he’s now looking to fight more rather than hold out for specific opponents.

“Nowadays with all these different companies, it’s hard to focus on a name like ‘I want this name,'” he said. “I done that for a while and it didn’t work good. We can take a good example of the Jon Jones fight that we’ve been talking about for six years … to the point where it’s kind of annoying to talk about. So whatever fight makes sense, opponent makes sense, just fight. The goal at the end of the day is to fight.”