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Israel Adesanya understands UFC has a business to run, but trying to erase Francis Ngannou and his contributions to the sport just doesn’t make sense to him.
In the days leading up to UFC 305, a promotional video was released showing comments that Adesanya made about the trio of African champions that once reigned atop the sport. At the time, Adesanya was joined by Ngannou as heavyweight champion and Kamaru Usman as welterweight champion, and the “three kings” touted plans to expand the sport even further into Africa in the future.
But the edited promo pushed out by UFC suspiciously removed Ngannou’s name despite being mentioned by Adesanya at that pre-fight press conference. None of it sat well with the former middleweight champion, but he hopes UFC eventually comes to its senses.
The first rule of UFC Fight Club: don’t mention Francis Ngannou’s name…
Here’s a look at the clip from the UFC 305 Countdown episode versus what Adesanya actually said at the UFC 305 Pre-Sale Press Conference.
It’s no surprise, but the UFC’s attempt to erase Ngannou from its… pic.twitter.com/PZpA7UAtSe
— AFeldmanMMA (@afeldMMA) August 13, 2024
“You can’t erase Francis’ legacy in the UFC,” Adesanya said at UFC 305 media day. “It’s part of what we’ve done. It’s forever in history, in stone. So trying to whitewash it or just not talk about it is silly.
“I know he’s fighting for the PFL right now, but it’s still history. You can’t just turn a blind eye to it. I’m sure they’ll fix it eventually. This is how business goes with the UFC.”
The split between UFC and Ngannou seemed to be a long time coming after “The Predator” spoke out about several issues regarding his contract he wanted to address before potentially inking a new deal to stay with the organization.
Ngannou’s issue wasn’t only about pay, but rather the freedom to pursue outside interests such as a longtime dream to compete in boxing, which only happened for him after he left UFC in free agency.
He eventually signed with PFL, but he was allowed to engage in a pair of boxing matches against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua before eventually booking his promotional debut against Renan Ferreira on Oct. 19.
Of course, Adesanya understands that UFC has to view Ngannou and PFL as opposition, but that doesn’t negate the history they share together.
“He’s an [integral] part of what we’ve done in the UFC,” Adesanya said. “Right now, I know there’s competition between other promotions and the UFC and battles, but you can never erase history. The streets, the internet will always remember.
“I think they’ll fix this eventually, but it’s just a lot of chest puffing. The UFC are smart people. They’ll understand and they’ll rectify this eventually.”
As far as his own personal relationship with the former UFC heavyweight champion, Adesanya still talks to Ngannou regularly and is excited to see his friend return to action in October.
The fight also serves as Ngannou’s first appearance since the tragic death of his 15-month-old son back in April.
Adesanya can’t even fathom that kind of pain, but he wishes nothing but the best for Ngannou as he restarts his MMA career in the PFL cage.
“I’m happy for him,” Adesanya said. “I’m happy for what he’s doing. He just went through something that I would never wish on anyone. We’ve talked. I’ve checked up on him. Again, I respect Francis so much.”
Israel Adesanya plans to become the second three-time Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champion in the promotion’s history at UFC 305 this weekend (Sat., Aug. 17, 2024).
The most dominant Middleweight champion since Brazil’s Anderson Silva has been none other than “The Last Stylebender,” Adesanya. Throughout his 27-fight career (24-3), Adesanya accumulated five total title defenses across two reigns as champion and could add more depending on if he dethrones Dricus du Plessis in his upcoming bout.
At the height of Adesanya’s power, he wasn’t the only champion from his native continent of Africa. Alongside him stood Heavyweight and Welterweight titleholders Francis Ngannou and Kamaru Usman. While Usman lost his title via a fifth round knockout to Leon Edwards in August 2022 (watch highlights), Ngannou parted ways with the promotion amid a contract negotiation breakdown in January 2023. Therefore, he gave up his title and signed with Professional Fighters League (PFL), making him an essential afterthought when UFC brings up its heaviest weight class.
“Francis, Kamaru, 100 percent these are guys that we have paved the way for people like Dricus,” Adesanya told ESPN. “We have paved the way for a whole continent to be able to dream. To be able to know, ‘Man, I can get there.’ I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Look, it doesn’t end with us. It doesn’t even end with Dricus. Wait for the next generation of African fighters.
“You can never erase Francis’ history from the UFC. I’ll say that,” he continued. “It’s part of history. We need to fix this. I don’t like that. I don’t like the fact that we’re trying just to cut out a really important part of history. It’s silly. But we’ll fix that. That’s for later on.”
If Adesanya defeats du Plessis at UFC 305, he’ll join only Randy Couture as the promotion’s lone three-time champions.
MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 305 fight card RIGHT HERE, starting with the early ESPN+ “Prelims” matches at 6:30 p.m. ET, followed by the remaining undercard balance on ESPN/ESPN+at 8 p.m. ET, before the PPV main card start time at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+ PPV.
To check out the latest and greatest UFC 305: “Du Plessis vs. Adesanya” news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archive right here. For the updated and finalized UFC 305 fight card and PPV lineup click here.
Photo By Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images
UFC 305 media day will feature UFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis, former UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, and a host of others fighting at Saturday’s event in Perth, Australia.
UFC 305 media day is at 10 p.m. ET, and the tentative schedule is below:
Olympic gold medalist Imane Khelif wants Elon Musk, J.K. Rowling, Donald Trump, and a host of others to pay.
Khelif spent the majority of her time in Paris at the center of an unpleasant dispute about her gender eligibility that reverberated around the world. Despite being born female and never identifying as transgender or intersex, Khelif faced a litany of accusations and abuse over her gender. Even as the International Olympic Committee stepped in to assure her accusers that “scientifically, this is not a man fighting a woman,” the attacks continued.
According to a report from Variety, Khelif’s Paris-based attorney Nabil Boudi said they have filed a criminal complaint over alleged “acts of cyber-harassment” to the Paris public prosecutor’s office on Friday.
“On Aug. 13, (The National Center for the Fight Against Online Hatred) contacted the OCLCH (Central Office for the Fight Against Crimes Against Humanity and Hate Crimes) to conduct an investigation into the counts of cyber harassment due to gender, public insult because of gender, public incitement to discrimination and public insult because of origin.”
A majority of the online attacks originated on X (formerly Twitter) which has devolved into the Wild West of social media after Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk purchased the company and stripped it of safeguards protecting users from hate speech and harassment in the name of free speech. That allowed multiple prominent names to share misinformation regarding Khelif’s gender, further escalating the vitriol.
Among them was J.K. Rowling, the famed author of the Harry Potter series who posted a picture from Khelif’s fight with Italian boxer Angela Carini and accused the former of being a man who was “enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head.” Rowling has more than 14 million followers on X.
Musk also chimed in adding that “men don’t belong in women’s sports” while Trump posted a message with a picture from the Carini fight accompanied by the message: “I will keep men out of women’s sports!”
Trump on Algerian boxer Imane Khelif:
"And I'd like to congratulate the young woman who transitioned from a man into a boxer. You saw he won. She won the gold medal."pic.twitter.com/pwIgNqM3sw
— The American Conservative (@amconmag) August 10, 2024
The legal action was filed against X, which under French law means it was filed against unknown persons which “ensures that the prosecution has all the latitude to be able to investigate against all people,” including those who may have written hateful messages under pseudonyms, Boudi said.
“J. K. Rowling and Elon Musk are named in the lawsuit, among others,” he added, adding that Donald Trump would be part of the investigation. “Trump tweeted, so whether or not he is named in our lawsuit, he will inevitably be looked into as part of the prosecution.”
WWE Superstar Logan Paul was also named in the suit after he wrote on X that Khelif’s win over Carini was the “purest form of evil.”
Imane Khelif dubs her detractors the ‘enemies of success’
Khelif faced backlash after a report revealed that she and one other fighter, Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, had been barred from competing at the 2023 World Championships in New Delhi after failing a gender eligibility test conducted by the International Boxing Association.
The IOC has disputed this test, and before the Paris events stripped the IBA of recognition as boxing’s governing body and expelled it from the Olympics over issues including corruption, financial transparency, and governance.
Following her gold medal-winning performance against China’s Yang Liu on Saturday, Khelif said:
“I am fully qualified to take part in this competition. I’m a woman like any other woman. I was born a woman, I have lived as a woman, I competed as a woman, there’s no doubt about that. [The detractors] are enemies of success, that is what I call them. And that also gives my success a special taste because of these attacks.”
Israel Adesanya will try to get his belt back against Dricus du Plessis at UFC 305. | Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
The UFC 305 fight card has the much anticipated clash between Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya in the main event.
UFC middleweight champion du Plessis put his belt on the line against former champion Adesanya in a contest that already has plenty of bad blood. Adesanya got the title shot despite coming off a loss to Sean Strickland via unanimous decision in his last outing at UFC 293.
Kai Kara-France and Steve Erceg battle in the co-main event in a pivotal flyweight contest.
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