28 October 2023 , 08:38
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Francis Ngannou was so set on becoming a boxer that not even a UFC contract was enough to make him excited about mixed martial arts.
Ngannou idolised Mike Tyson as a child and when he arrived in Paris from Cameroon over a decade ago, he set his sights on becoming a fighter. But instead of boxing, he fell into MMA and progressed on the regional circuit before being picked up by the sport's premier organisation.
Ngannou went on to win the UFC heavyweight title by knocking out Stipe Miocic but defended it only once - against former teammate Ciryl Gane - before leaving the promotion when he failed to agree a new multi-million-pound deal. Ngannou has since joined the Professional Fighters League - but admits boxing will always be his first love.
"I was never excited about MMA, regardless of how motivated the people around me were," he said. "I was not excited about becoming an MMA champion. In August 2015, when I was in the bedroom when I received the call saying I had a UFC contract, but I wasn't excited about it, for that moment I looked at it as a good opportunity.
"It was a combat sport and an opportunity to become a world champion. It was always my dream to become an elite professional fighter and this was it, it might not be boxing but this was it. That was the moment I really started to train as an MMA fighter, before it was just fun. But I knew that if i was going to expose myself I had better look good."
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Ngannou was so green for his MMA debut that he pulled off a submission noone has since been able to name. "That was three months after I started to train," he recalled. "It was in a gymnasium in Paris, I was fighting this guy, the only reason I was fighting him was because I trusted my boxing. Having been in the gym for three months I didn't know much about MMA, I didn't even know the rules, it was just fun and a passion.
"I ended up winning by submission but to this day, a lot of jiu-jitsu and grappling specialists have tried to find a name for that technique but there wasn't one. The guy just wanted to go to the floor and I grabbed his arm and twisted it and pulled his hand."