Francis Ngannou’s first fight of 2024 is booked, and it will take place in the boxing ring, not an MMA cage.
As MMA Fighting confirmed on Friday, Ngannou will face Anthony Joshua in a 10-round boxing match that is targeted for March, although the date is currently not finalized at this time. Following Ngannou making the decision to leave the UFC as heavyweight champion in early 2023, he went on to sign with the PFL before taking Tyson Fury to the limit in his pro boxing debut in October. Now, “The Predator” gets another massive opportunity to shake things up in boxing’s heavyweight division.
Following the news being announced, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck, Shaun Al-Shatti, and Eric Jackman react to the news, how it benefits both fighters, discuss what it means for Ngannou’s MMA future, early predictions, and more.
Audio-only versions of the podcast can be found below, on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
UFC phenom Raul Rosas Jr. will take on Ricky Turcios at UFC Mexico City.
Multiple people with knowledge of the promotion’s plans confirmed the fight to MMA Fighting after an initial report from Eurosport NL.
UFC Mexico City takes place Feb. 24 at Arena CDMX in Mexico City. The event is expected to air on ESPN+.
Rosas Jr., the youngest-ever fighter to sign with the UFC at 17, hopes to cement his first UFC winning streak five months after stopping Terrence Mitchell at Noche UFC this past September.
Now 19, Rosas Jr. has been forced to adjust expectations after a debut win over Jay Perrin at UFC 282 was followed by an upset loss to Christian Rodriguez at UFC 287.
The Ultimate Fighter 29 vet Turcios returns to the cage after a split call win over Kevin Natividad at UFC Vegas 65, which left him at 2-1 since his time on the reality show.
UFC Mexico City is expected to be headlined by a flyweight fight between ex-champ Brandon Moreno and Amir Albazi.
MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin contributed to this report.
Francis Ngannou put on a performance to be proud of last time out but it looks like his boxing venture is far from finished. Reports have surfaced which claim the former UFC star will face Anthony Joshua in the future.
‘The Predator’ collided with a man considered by many to be the greatest heavyweight of his generation Tyson Fury. The pair went to a decision in which ‘The Gypsy King’ was given the nod by the judges, though controversially.
Huge news has broken today regarding the future of Francis Ngannou. Reports suggest that the powerhouse will come face-to-face with British boxing standout Anthony Joshua for a ten-round boxing affair in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, according to Ariel Helwani.
“It is a done deal. Francis Ngannou, ‘The Predator’, the former UFC heavyweight champion, the man who shocked the world back in October when he went the distance with Tyson Fury. Not only did he go the distance, he knocked him down and dare I say won the fight.”
“The pride of Cameroon, the pride of France, now residing in Las Vegas, Nevada. He put the entire boxing world on notice. And what did he do? He became a ranked heavyweight. And what happens as a result of that? You get some more big fish.”
“It’s a done deal. It’s Francis Ngannou against Anthony Joshua. AJ. [A man] who went 3-0 in 2023. A comeback season, if you will, for the former Olympic great.”
Related: PFL founder Donn Davis on when Francis Ngannou and Jake Paul fights for 2024
According to Helwani, plans changed for Francis Ngannou on December 23. The Day of Reckoning boxing event featured some of the world’s best but it wasn’t a night to remember for everybody.
Putting in a losing performance was Deontay Wilder, who came up short against Joseph Parker. Wilder was in constant talks to face Ngannou, but the defeat shifted the MMA star’s focus.
As stated earlier, Francis Ngannou vs. Anthony Joshua is official. The two heavyweights will lock horns inside the squared circle for a ten-round affair in Saudi Arabia. The date for the bout is still TBA.
Regional mixed martial arts (MMA) promotions are incredibly vital for the growth of the sport and is where young fighters cut their teeth before making it to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
For years now, Legacy Fighting Alliance (LFA) has been the top dog, sending over 100 fighters to the UFC, including Sean O’Malley, Kamaru Usman, Valentina Shevchenko, Alex Pereira, and Brandon Moreno. It’s also the premiere organization to watch on Friday before UFC cards on Saturday.
However, another regional promotion in the Texas shadows has been doing its thing since Feb 2013: Fury Fighting Championships (Fury FC).
Fury Fighting Championship logo
Starting a fight promotion is daunting because it is expensive, time-consuming, and tricky overall. So many have come and gone, but when the promotor has a solid starting goal, it’s hard to deny them.
“So I started with amateur cards back in 2010, and really, the main reason I did it was because I was training with a team that had issues getting matchups on the one and only local promotion at the time, which was Lone Star Beatdown that belonged to [current UFC matchmaker] Mick Maynard,” Fury FC promoter Eric Garcia said. “I had got a fight on one of his first cards and then his second card. My guys that were helping me get ready wanted to try and jump on these amateur cards, but the demand to get on the card was so high that there wasn’t really any space for the rest of my team. So I decided to start my own promotion with the idea that I would give my team first dibs on fights, and it kind of just took off from there.”
For eight years, Fury FC did their thing on FITE.TV, putting on solid events, sending a handful of fighters to the UFC, but it was on Mar. 6, 2021, that everything changed forever. Fury FC had their first event on UFC Fight Pass: Fury FC 44.
“The whole idea to try and get on UFC Fight Pass came from Mick Maynard,” Garcia said. “He was asking me, ‘You haven’t tried to get on UFC Fight Pass, you know, Fury is here in Houston, it’s growing fast and it’d be a great platform.’ So he kind of made the connection and opened that door for us, and we flew to Las Vegas to try and get a meeting with the UFC Fight Pass VP.”
Fury FC matchmaker and overall MMA Swiss army knife Rich Burmaster added, “One thing to remember, too, is that we didn’t have any promises of a meeting or anything. We went out to Vegas and were like, ‘Hey, man, we’re in town. Can you take 10 minutes to have a drink and talk with us?’ And to his credit, he did. It turned into an hour-long conversation, sitting at a local bar, and it was kind of us saying things he had heard before, like ‘We can do this, we can do this.’ And him challenging us, saying, ‘Well, you know, I’ve heard this before, and people don’t really come through.’ It ended with us locking in six fight cards, but we ended up doing 12, so we doubled what they said we could do.”
Fury FC’s first event of UFC Fight Pass was memorable because the last three fights ended in violent finishes. But it was the main event, CJ Vergara vs. Jacob Silva, that left fans with their jaws on the floor as it was a Fight of the Year contender, not just in Fury FC but in all of MMA.
CJ Vergara vs. Jacob Silva
Fury FC 44 03.06.2021 Houston, Texas, USA pic.twitter.com/d9JY3UUFxp
— Neo Vale Tudo (@NeoValeTudo) December 23, 2021
Since Fury FC 44, the promotion has put on 40 numbered events, not including their new challenger series, amateur events, and submission grappling events.
While Fury FC puts on quality events throughout the year, the Texas-based promotion has one goal: get fighters to the UFC. And they know what it takes: getting finishes. While yes, a short notice call is one way to get to the world’s largest fight promotion; Fury FC tries to tee up their fighters for Dana White’s Contender Series (DWCS).
In 2023, Fury FC sent three of their champions to DWCS: Joshua Van, Cameron Smotherman, and Abdul-Kareem Selwady, plus Marquel Mederos, Rain Guerreronm, Reyes Cortez Jr. and Zach Reese. 22-year-old Joshua Van got a call to the UFC on short notice, skipping DWCS entirely and making a huge splash going 2-0 in 2023.
Several other Fury FC fighters made their UFC debuts in 2023, including Bassil Hafez, Diego Lopes, Nazim Sadykhov, Edgar Chairez, and Jesse Butler. Oh, and 6’7” Cuban giant Robelis Despaigne got immediately signed to the UFC on the last Fury FC show of 2023.
As I said, LFA has long been the gold standard of American regional MMA, but Fury FC is making its case to take that crown.
“I don’t think we’ve surpassed them, if I’m being honest,” Garcia said. “I’ll still admit that I look at them as the top UFC Fight Pass promotion, but we’re not far behind, and having them up there and knowing that there’s a goal for us to be up there next to them or surpass them is what really gives me motivation to work hard. I will say that they did have a jumpstart on us, obviously. You know, there’s no denying that what Mick Maynard did with LFA set the foundation for them; he really gave them a huge boost. What he did was phenomenal, you know, and that’s what I look at and try to follow- how he ran LFA and some of his choices and decisions. I feel like we’re getting close and in the next year, we will be right there if we don’t surpass them all together.”
Fury FC matchmaker Burmaster sees it differently.
“For me, I see it as a passing of the torch because I do look at LFA as more than a regional promotion now. They’re in Brazil, meaning they’re worldwide,” Burmaster said. “But I think as you look at 2021, 2020, 2023, and heading into 2024, we’re putting close to 15 to 20 people a year on contender series or into the UFC. I think the bigger our stars grow, you’re going to see the bigger Fury grows. I’ll just say when you look at the quality of the fights, the consistency in the matchmaking and our cards, I feel like Fury is establishing ourselves nicely, and I think we are the number one brand on UFC Fight Pass.”
Fury FC returns for their first card of 2024 on Jan. 21 from inside Imagen Venues in Houston, TX, exclusively on UFC Fight Pass.
Fury FC has already released their 2024 Q1 schedule #FuryFC pic.twitter.com/PcMUahMpiY
A lot of MMA observers think former UFC heavyweight Stipe Miocic should step aside to decide the best in the big-man division. That includes interim champ Tom Aspinall, who’s publicly campaigned to unify the belt against undisputed champ Jon Jones.
On Friday, Miocic responded to a series of tweets from Aspinall arguing the title unifier should be next on the UFC’s schedule, and for all the reasonable points the U.K. titleholder raised, the American also had a reasonable one.
“I have never caused a delay in the Jon fight,” Miocic wrote on Friday.
I have never caused a delay in the Jon fight.⁰⁰Tom, once I get this win, let’s talk to unify the belt.
— Stipe Miocic (@stipemiocic) January 5, 2024
In his pitch to fight Jones, Aspinall cited Miocic’s inactivity by way of the release of Grand Theft Auto 2.
Last time Stipe fought and won, GTA: San Andreas had just come out on PS2. He will fight next for the undisputed heavyweight title, ahead of me, who’s the interim champ, active and ranked #1 in the world right now. This makes me quite upset
— Tom Aspinall (@AspinallMMA) January 4, 2024
Miocic was scheduled to fight Jones this past November at UFC 295. But prior to the event, Jones suffered a torn pectoral in training, and the UFC elected to make an interim title fight on short notice between Aspinall and Sergei Pavlovich. Aspinall won the interim belt with a first-round knockout and soon after called to unify the belt.
But rather than pass over Miocic, UFC CEO Dana White promised to reschedule Miocic vs. Jones when “Bones” was healthy enough to fight. That put Apsinall in the lurch for potentially most of 2024.
This week, Aspinall took to social media to plead his case.
In a recent appearance on The MMA Hour, Aspinall urged the UFC to let him move forward with his career.
“I think that Stipe and Jones is an absolutely amazing match up,” he said. “But in my opinion, that was an amazing matchup for this past weekend, and I feel like the shine of that fight has kind of gone. I don’t know how anybody else feels about that, but I feel like now, they need to make either me and John Jones, or me and Stipe, because what’s kind of the point in the other stuff? Let’s move forward, let me fight one of the legends now, and let me move forward with my career, as opposed to doing this other stuff and wait around.
“[Jones vs. Miocic] was amazing. That’s an amazing match up. But I don’t want to see that, and I don’t think anyone else wants to see that in a year’s time. Let’s move on from that now, and let me fight one of the legends and beat the legends.”
Miocic’s most recent UFC appearance was in March 2021, when he lost the heavyweight title to then-champ Francis Ngannou. It was widely reported that his bout with Jones at UFC 295 was likely to serve as his retirement bout, though he repeatedly said he wasn’t decided on the matter.
Miocic proposed a showdown with Aspinall assuming a win over Jones when they eventually met.
“Tom, once I get this win, let’s talk to unify the belt,” he wrote.
Francis Ngannou released his first statement following the announcement of his blockbuster return to the boxing ring.
On Friday (January 5), renowned combat sports journalist and The MMA Hour host, Ariel Helwani, broke the news that Ngannou would make his sophomore appearance inside the squared circle this year against former unified heavyweight world champion, Anthony Joshua.
The news comes less than three months removed from Ngannou’s sensational pro boxing debut against Tyson Fury in Riyadh.
“Massive breaking news on this Friday evening in the world of combat sports,” Helwani said. “I have confirmed via Mr. Turki Alalshikh that it is a done deal. That it is going down. Francis Ngannou, the former UFC heavyweight champion is returning to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia just a few months removed from his incredible performance against Tyson Fury. After an unbelievable year where he leaves the UFC, signs with the PFL, and then he gets the big Tyson fight and shocks everyone.
“He is returning to action in a boxing match later on this year to go up against the former heavyweight champion. The man who had an incredible 2023 in his own right. The man who just won at Day of Reckoning on December 23 in Riyadh, the one and only Anthony Joshua. It is a done deal on both ends. Anthony Joshua vs. Francis Ngannou. 10-round fight later on this year in Riyadh.”
Breaking:
Francis Ngannou vs. Anthony Joshua is a done deal, per @Turki_alalshikh.
Ten-round boxing match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
More: pic.twitter.com/e6Hsc6Fh70
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) January 5, 2024
Francis Ngannou Ready to Make ‘Big Moves’ in 2024
Despite coming up short against ‘The Gypsy King’ via split decision, Ngannou’s critically acclaimed performance was strong enough to land him on the No. 10 spot of the WBC’s heavyweight top ten.
Taking to social media shortly after the news broke, Ngannou shared his excitement over what is to come writing: “Making big moves in the new year. 2024 is going to be [fire emoji].”
Making big moves in the new year 2024 is going to be
— Francis Ngannou (@francis_ngannou) January 5, 2024
No official date has been announced, but Helwani added that a press conference will go down in London later this month where more details regarding the highly anticipated clash will be revealed.
Anthony Joshua is coming off his third-straight win of 2023, earning a dominant fifth-round knockout of Otto Wallin at the Day of Reckoning card in Saudi Arabia. Prior, he scored a unanimous decision victory over Jermaine Franklin followed by a seventh-round KO against Robert Helenius, both emanating from the O2 Arena.
Overall, Joshua is 27-3 in his boxing career with 24 of his wins coming by way of knockout.
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