{"id":1609,"date":"2023-07-04T18:18:38","date_gmt":"2023-07-04T17:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/?p=1609"},"modified":"2023-07-04T22:36:24","modified_gmt":"2023-07-04T21:36:24","slug":"for-francis-ngannou-a-fight-against-jon-jones-can-still-take-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/for-francis-ngannou-a-fight-against-jon-jones-can-still-take-place\/","title":{"rendered":"For Francis Ngannou, a fight against Jon Jones can still take place"},"content":{"rendered":"

Francis Ngannou still believes a fight against Jon Jones is possible despite all the reluctance from the UFC.<\/span><\/span> Francis Ngannou left the UFC in January of this year when he was the promotion’s heavyweight champion.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Subsequently, he signed with the PFL, with the assurance of being able to fight in boxing as he had wanted for a long time.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The ‘Predator’ currently has no official fight date scheduled, but he is expected to step into a ring against Deontay Wilder or even Tyson Fury for an exhibition fight and then make his PFL debut, in<\/span><\/span> the cage, in 2024.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For his part, Jon Jones became UFC heavyweight champion by defeating Ciryl Gane at UFC 285 and Jones and Ngannou had a PFL face-off a while back.<\/span><\/span> And following that, Ngannou remains hopeful of facing Jones despite the UFC’s reluctance (via TMZ):<\/span><\/span> \u201cIt is always possible that the fight will take place.<\/span><\/span> I think the UFC needs to come up with a solution and maybe cross-promote to give the fans what they want and make the fight happen.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As soon as they decide to do so, everything will be fine because all parties are ready for the fight, except for one\u201c.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very exciting because we have been talking about this fight for three years, so it was good to meet in person.<\/span><\/span> I think we respect each other as athletes, even though we have this rivalry and everyone wants to know who the biggest dog in the room is.<\/span><\/span> \u00bb<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“I would say I’m more comfortable with a heavier Jon Jones than the light heavyweight Jon Jones because of course he put in an impressive performance against Ciryl Gane, but for the first minute, the first<\/span><\/span> interaction and the first strike, it didn’t look good.<\/span><\/span> He’s never faced a guy like me, a full-size heavyweight.<\/span><\/span> I think Ciryl was a perfect fighter to start with because there was no threat.<\/span><\/span> He’s not a guy who’s going to knock you out in one hit.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Francis Ngannou still believes a fight against Jon Jones is possible despite all the reluctance from the UFC. Francis Ngannou left the UFC in January of this year when he was the promotion’s heavyweight champion. Subsequently, he signed with the PFL, with the assurance of being able to fight in boxing as he had wanted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pfl-mma"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1611,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609\/revisions\/1611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}