Why Dana White Needs to Bring Francis Ngannou Back to UFC

The UFC has enjoyed quite the run over the past few decades. What began as a low-budget fighting competition, has turned into the most popular professional combat competition in the world, overtaking the historic sport of boxing.

However, what makes the UFC so great are the personalities that step into the octagon week in and week out. These athletes dedicate all of their time to try and climb the rankings and eventually reach the top and be crowned as champions.

Current UFC president, Dana White, has done a spectacular job in both recruiting and retaining some of the highest quality fighters from around the world. However, there are a few instances when White overstepped his reach during contract negotiations, and lost a premier fighter in the process. Most recently, this happened during contract negotiations with the then Heavyweight Champion, Francis Ngannou.

In January 2023, Ngannou decided not to renew his contract with UFC because he felt it didn’t grant him enough freedom, and White ultimately decided not to give in to the Cameroonian fighter’s request. As a result, the UFC lost one of its most exciting and dominant fighters. Below I will be detailing just three of the many reasons that Dana White needs to renegotiate with Ngannou and bring him back to the UFC.

Dominance in the Octagon

Although Ngannou didn’t enjoy the longest career in the UFC, he certainly left his mark on the sport. Finishing with a 17-3 record, including a Heavyweight title and title defense, Ngannou seemed almost untouchable in the last handful of fights in the UFC. Of course, there are the Stipe Miocic and Derrick Lewis fights, in which he suffered his only defeats in UFC, but he went on to win his six fights since then, with five of them coming from a knockout.

In addition to this, he was able to defeat Miocic in a rematch for the title and defended his belt against Ciryl Gane, the #2 Heavyweight fighters at the time. Ngannou was just entering his prime in the past few years, and I think we missed out on a lot of future dominance because of his departure from UFC.

Left at the Top of his Game

As I mentioned above, Ngannou left at the top of his game. Although he hasn’t fought in over a year. His final two fights were against the best that the Heavyweight division had to offer.

Although his fight against Gane is the only instance of Ngannou winning without a knockout, he displayed his dominance and truly how much better he was than everyone else at the time. Now, with a new king of the Heavyweight division, Ngannou needs to return to the UFC, so we can experience what would be one of the best UFC fights of all time.

Newfound Rivalry with Current Heavyweight Champion

Following Jon Jones 1st round submission of Ciryl Gane at UFC 285, Jones was crowned the new Heavyweight king of the UFC and has displayed that if anyone can give Ngannou a challenge, it would be “Bones” Jones. Both men had things to say to each other directly following the fight.

Ngannou sarcastically congratulated Jones following his victory with a tweet that ends with, “Sincerely, The Heavyweight King”.

Jones didn’t seem to like Nganou’s message as he had this to say during his post-fight press conference, “Francis is a big ol’ p****”. Although it seemed that he was partly joking, Jones definitely didn’t appreciate the disrespect from Ngannou and I’m sure would jump at the chance to fight him.

Unfortunately, the UFC, Ngannou, and Jones all don’t think that this fight will happen, but it certainly isn’t an impossibility. A Jones vs. Ngannou Heavyweight title fight is what everyone wants, and hopefully Dana White and Ngannou are able to reach an agreement soon to make it happen.

For more MMA news and content, read here.