JRE MMA Show #146 with Francis Ngannou

You were right.

And the Saudis were very interested in this fight.

The boxing world is a little wild. Yeah, it's a little different, it's completely different, it's a different animal.

But yeah.

And they almost get made, and then they don't get made, and they almost get made, and then they don't get made.

Do we control everything else? Yeah.

Like, okay, if this is the end, then he has to end my way, you know? So, not because I was sure that it's going to happen, I knew that it could have not happened, right?

But I was to be in peace with my decision. So that's the thing about it. And I'm very happy that it happened makes it even better. But I knew there was a risk that it didn't happen.

But I had to take a chance.

I felt like I wasn't in the right place and after that then I get directly with fight. It was like the worst fight and that didn't help me at all, you know?

So I think from that moment I was already put in some position out there because I came back. I won multiple fights and they came with a new deal. This was after Junior dos Santos.

Back in June 2017.

And then he was Mick who called for a new deal. And then until my team was on the way to the negotiation. Who was in Anaheim when Stipe and D.C. was fighting the second time?

And then they were like, No, they didn't say no, no. New deal for Francis. He still has three fights on his contract. And to be honest, I was even happy.

Because I wanted to knock that deal out. By that time, I understood a little bit about the market. I just wanted to fight out my contract and renegotiate us free, you know?

But then?

A month after, we get a call from I think Hunter or somebody there, yeah. They said, Oh, let's talk about a new deal for Francis. And at that time there was no new deal. We just wanted to fight.

It was already September, Yeah, we were in September, and my last fight was in June, I wanted to fight.

So the new deal stuff was holding me back, they didn't give me a fight.

There was a Covid in between, but without Covid, it would still be like 10 months, right? And then from Rosenstruck to Stipe, same thing.

Then Stipe to Syringan, almost the same thing. It was mostly about the contract.

Obviously they know my position because I was pressured financially. You know, when you have a fight, you expect to fight at least at that level. At that moment, I was expecting to fight at least two or three times a year, right?

Then I get to the point that I have one fight, I have nothing. So I was limited of income, stuff like that, then I started to borrow money.

Even before the Stipe fight, when they announced that fight, I needed to call to ask for advance of my purse. To finance my training camp, I had no money, but I was there training and getting ready for almost a year.

So I took some advance.

I live in the street, bro, and then I'm here in Las Vegas. You think like, Okay, I don't fight, I just have to change everything. I'm able to live out of the bare minimum.

And I don't care if I walk around, you guys say, ho-ho, champ, UFC contender, whatever it is, man. I just live based of what is in my, based of my asset, I don't live beyond that. That's why I like, I don't really trust those credit card system or those loans and stuff. That's America shit, bro.

I don't trust that because when it lets you down, it lets you down. Yeah, for sure. I check my wallet, whatever is in my wallet, I live based on that.

I don't go loan and stuff unless, like, I'm forced at some point, or it's an investment. Like having taken the money, borrowing money for your training camp, you know, that's a different thing.

Again, the condition at that time, I think at that time for me, it was more than a contract. It was like a lot of frustration from the past almost three years. You know, I'm like, Okay, I have no guarantee that signing this contract, I will not get into what?

I was, I have been to in the past three years, so how about we change something that will make me feel secure?

You have no say, so when they say, Oh, you fight tomorrow, you say, Uh, no, now I'm like, Okay, no problem. We were just checking. And then maybe a week after, you will receive a letter of extension like your contract has been extended for six months.

And that's what happened with me.

And refuse is subjective, right?

For example, my extension, for example, the first one when I get when I first DP, right? And I have been fighting almost once a year in the past three years. I first DP on March 27th and then April 2nd. Mick is calling my team and I tell them like, Oh, I want to fight. Stay active.

I want to fight twice this year, again Summer, which is July or August and December, and then April 2nd. They are calling to ask me to fight. And I was getting ready. It was a big moment in my life.

I'm like, I'm bringing this trophy home, this trophy home.

We were just offering in case because Francis said he want to fight twice this year. I'm like, Yes, I do, and I said July the earliest, and August and December. And I know that I can take one, two weeks, two, three weeks out, maybe go home, do stuff and come back.

And I'm like, No, no, no, totally understandable. He was just to check in case it worked for you, it wasn't really.

A couple of months after, I received an extension about that. But you know why? Because my contract originally supposed to end in May 20th of that year, so if my contract end on May 20th of that year. That means the championship close kicks in, which is one year.

But if they extend me, I have to go all the way to the extension before the championship close kicks in. So it was more time. Yeah, so when they say no, it's OK, no problem.

We were just checking and I was in Cameroon on May 19th. So one day before my original contract, which was 14 months, expired and then the championship kicks in, I received an extension letter.

I was in Cameroon suffering of Covid at that time.

So I received an extension letter, so now I'm extended until November 20th.

Right, and it seems to work pretty good.

But I wasn't going to force to change everything, I wasn't expecting to go there and demand this, demand that and just have everything. It's a big company, it's like an institution, so there is a way that they do things and that can change.

So I'm like, OK, if so, let's take boxing out. Why? Because give me three fights contract of three fights. I knew that I cannot get three fight contract in a year.

Then, from that moment, I was free. Because I want a middle ground like an alternative, a way to get out by giving something out, to get something at the end, got it.

Because it's really hard to get in a negotiation and just like, Oh, I want this, I want that, I want that. And stop there. At some point. You have to compromise to push back, give something in order to get something. So stuff like that was the thing that I was about it. And that seems to be attractive to them. So one three fight deal, no extension.

That seems to be attractive. Two Fight was supposed to be potentially Junjuns Fight and Rematch, and One Fight is the trilogy with Stipe. That was the request and work for both parties.

Then we get to another point sponsorship deal. Why? sponsorship deal? Because before that I had a deal. After the Stipe fight, I had a deal on the table for over a million dollars for a cryptocurrency wallet.

So I was going to have, like, I think, 1.

2 million, which is the money that I didn't, I never had in the fight. I was going to have that in a sponsorship. And the deal was this close to sign. And then they announced the Crypto.com deal, and then the party pulled off.

I'm like, Bro, we can do, you understand our position, you can carry this in the octagon while behind, we are trying to push.

Com.

And now I'm like, I think this is messed up. I need, we need to solve this. I need a sponsorship, I need a right to have my own sponsor.

Fighters should be able to have two, three sponsorships on their gears. I mean, I understand that we want to make this sport grow, make it nice.

But we can also, meanwhile, you can have a department who check all the sponsors. Like, Oh, no, this is not good because of this reason, it doesn't represent the sport well.

Right? But there are a lot of good staff out there that will also help fighters to, you know, to provide to get a little more money.

And that was another discussion. I'm like, Oh, you can't do that, that's not right, okay? So what is working exactly?

They make me some kind of like a proposal, which I don't know, it doesn't even make sense.

But and the other one was like?

Because of the fact that I was in this position for so long and I was just so powerless. The reason why I stay in this position, why I keep holding my ground was only because. In the contract, there is what they call the sunset clause. So, meaning like, after five years from the beginning, from the day you sign the contract, doesn't matter what is in the contract, the contract expire, they can extend you past that date. So my end goal from the beginning, from the moment that I know that, okay, I'm going to hold this ground. I knew that I have to face some obstacle.

So my end goal was the five years, the sunset I had the sunset date in my mind.

December 9th, 2022.

I had that day in my mind for like almost three years. So when I was receiving all this extension letter. I mean, I couldn't fight it either way, but in my mind, I was just like, It's okay. One thing that I know, just focus on December 9th, 2022 and then you will be fine.

So after that, then I'm like, okay, if I sign a new deal, I don't know. Even if there is not extension, there have been a proof of like.

How could I say, in a nice way, abuse of power, right? But why are we in this position? This is the position that every fighter get into, right? I mean, be feeling powerless. We might be many, hundreds of us, but it's every individual at time.

We are very separated, every case is separated. So which mean you're just weak. It's just you against the big monster, which is the company, the institution, so you can't fight.

How can we make it make sense? I mean, we are not going for Union.

But at least you guys sometime before make some decision. How about you have somebody in the room who can understand things from our perspective? Because I do believe that all the decision that you might make will hurt us is not mean to hurt. But maybe just because you don't understand our position. Maybe if somebody there is speaking for us, which again, I don't know who he could be. But just be mindful that, okay, this is fighter position, maybe that will help.

I don't remember 19th or 22nd, something like that. I had a dinner with Hunter after we'd been going through stuff. He said. No to this, no to that.

But I have a focus, I know that. Okay, if I give three fights here, since they are willing to take the three fights, it's going to make. I don't want to break this relationship like this, I don't want it to be a war. I can't stand.

I can't stand this so we can get trying to fix things up. But when we met again, that day was the first time. Over all this time that we have to talk about the financial aspect, I mean, he has to propose the financial aspect.

I'm like, come on, man, it's not my first pay-per-view contract.

I don't know, frustrated or disappointed, I don't know how I can describe, but one thing I know I went online. I'm like, I'm missing Christmas with my family. I'm here training for a potential John Jones fight, which might not happen.

I'm like, I don't think so. We didn't just have an agreement.

And he said, How about I make it? We talk again, let's get in the meeting, we enter again and talk. And as I said, Mick, always be nice, and I couldn't say no, I'm like, Yes, let's try. In fact, I wish it could have worked.

You know, because, to be honest, I never like, really. Before all this, I never imagined a life out of the UFC. I thought it would be like my fighting platform until my retirement or something.

But clearly, things have changed along the way.

And all this time that we've been talking, they've been talking about.

What is the term back pay? Yeah, we're going to back pay you.

Because from all the fights that I've been refusing to renegotiate the pay that they were proposing, they said. They're going to back pay me that when they come out now and then make pay better. And now I'm like, OK, the back pay and this, and that? I'm like, No, no, everything is in this contract, this is it, this is it. And now I'm like, OK, well, then I don't know what to say.

If you say this is it because it's against your word, you say something, and now you say this is it. I still don't have the back pay, bro.

They invited us to a dinner and then keep reminding me how they're going to back pay me everything. Because I have a good proposal at the time, but I know that proposal and it was a good money. But I know it was just a pay to sign a contract. It was just to put the pen on the paper. It wasn't really like a good faith, like how they want to give me a good contract.

And they get to the point that I'm like, No, everything is in this. I'm like, OK, I don't see it.

And we were kind of like, silent for a couple of seconds, like, what does that mean? I'm like, I don't know. Then we hang up.

Yes, he's not getting any younger, he's injured. I'm like, Yes, he's not getting any younger. But you were trying to have him, he's injured, but you were trying to have him now, you didn't come to an agreement.

You're batching him. That's when I started to respond, because I never really wanted this to be something on me. And I was expecting, like, maybe they go out there and just say, Oh, unfortunately, we didn't come to an agreement. And this and that, and thank you, good luck, right? And then we move away, but that's not how they do things over there.

There was so much pressure into that process and I was in Cameroon. I'm like, man, just live your life, you know, whatever is yours out there will come to you.

But I get the first person that reached out was Pete Mary from PFL. And then I was just like, Yes, let's hear him out, and he came out. We speak. He asked, like, what I'm looking for and stuff.

We speak and I'm like, Ah, looks good. A couple of days after he made a proposal, I look, I mean, I didn't even ask for, not anything. But when he make a proposal, I look at the structure of that proposal. I'm like, this is good, you know?

Everything was being taken into consideration. You know, obviously there is always going to be a way to negotiate in a contract, but the way that they structured it, I was already happy. I'm like, I think this guy is trying to make me happy.

And then a couple of days, they send their own contract.

But when I was putting that contract next to the PFL one, it was day and night.

So, a very independent contract.

But I was more looking at boxing, that's the first time that I started to have dialogue about boxing and stuff.

It's just along the way, he has a potential opportunity right away. That they say, OK. We would like to pursue the conversation about what we have here. And for us, it was understandable. I'm like, OK, then let's explore, maybe after, and then right after that, I started a conversation for the fury fight.

Because I get a call, I was driving to the airport and I get a call to meet in New York for some conversation about the Fury fight. And then when I get in New York next week, we scheduled that on. Next week, I get in New York, we get to the room, I meet the people.

He was the right people we spoke. I hear them out and I'm like, I knew them right, and I'm like, OK, this is legit.

I think with these people behind, this fight is going to happen. And that's where I now put them in contact with my team to negotiate because they wanted me to do everything. Let's negotiate. I'm like, I don't do negotiation.

I listen, I talk about how I would like things to go, but I don't like to negotiate personally. I want this, I deserve this.

I'm that I'd rather have somebody do that on my behalf.

His ego takes over and the deal is off. But when there's somebody in between and you always come to like, OK, it's not him. And just to think about it. And that's what happened. Because sometimes with my team, there was frustrated and I'm like, Oh, no, this is not working.

And then they will come to you, then you would talk nice, be a nice cop, have no problem. I'm like, No.

But my team is saying this because they didn't mean to offend you, but I think, you know.

OK, it's pretty easy.

June.

Everything was set.

I said, let's just figure out what would be my next boxing fight before we sign the deal.

Is that possible?

That's where I'm at. No, it's possible, that's where I'm at, it's possible, but they have to go to the PFA now.

Maybe he'll be a special fight, a special belt or something. Yeah, maybe not like a UFC belt, I don't know.

I worry about that fight, that challenge, yes, and I wouldn't care if it was a fight without a title, you know, so right.

In my.

I don't need a UFC title.

You know, sometimes, even in the negotiations, sometimes you have to see long term, like, what it comes with. Mm-hmm. Now I get this fight. I think it should have been the focus, right?

Mm-hmm. After this fight, imagine, hypothetically, I go out there and knock Tyson Fury out. What do you think will happen for me? Where does that leave me?

It's going to be the first time that my family is going to attend to my fight and I don't even have to think about that. They're going to work on it, they're going to figure out how to bring my mom, my sister, my brother out to Saudi to watch that fight.

How can we build something like, is it like somebody that I can trust? can we build something for the future? And then when you feel like, yes, you invest into that relationship.

You're happy with everything. So then in June is when you go hardcore boxing training, when did you start like hardcore boxing training?

No, like I was in a camp.

And I think Eric Nixon put me in contact with them, with Brigham, he sent me a contact.

Right, he's big. I'm like, you really need to go full force.

I have seen you.

I have seen you.

It's you and Derek Lewis, you're the two biggest knockout artists ever.

It's going down.

And four years ago was the first time that I met Mike Tyson. I was on his podcast, The Hard Boxing. And one request that I initiated at that time was like, Whenever I fight Tyson Fury, would you be in my corner? And he said, Yes, that's even on my Instagram.

It's still on my Instagram. The next day I put that as a caption. I asked him if he would be in my corner whenever I fight Tyson Fury. And nobody believed that this could have happened. Like, Okay, cool.

Then what? And when I get to fight, I'm like, Bro, that thing is happening, that thing is manifesting itself. Wow.

But I like his style, the way that his approach and stuff, and I really have a good connection with him. So what's up, I reach out. I mean, even before the fight, I was working with him, taking him in Cameroon. Get some training already.

Then when the fight get announced, I talk with him, then I brought him out, so he's in Vegas with me.

A guy from a boxing gym named Didier Camo, the first boxing gym that I get into, but he was also a martial artist himself. And he said, Bro, I think you have a very good potential. I think your best outcome now regarding your situation, because I was still homeless at the time, I think your best outcome would be MMA.

If you.

I'm like, What's MMA? He started to explain to me, like, you know, I'm like, Ah, OK, that sport that they do in the cage. He said, Yes.

I'm like, Ah, I have seen it, he said. If you train some takedown, defense and jujitsu, what is jujitsu? He started to explain. I think you're going to be a UFC champion one day. What is UFC?

That was in 2013..

Man, that Stipe fight taught me a lot about combat sports. After that fight, I was at the press conference and telling people like, I think I have learned more in this fight. Because here I've been. What? Almost just four years, four years and a half since I've been doing, not even four years and a half since I've been doing MMA. When I forced Stipe the first time.

Yeah, and I said, I learned this night tonight. I learned more than I have learned in the past four years in this game. And I think people didn't understand, but I meant it.

You didn't just rush out and try to take him out in the first round. Much more dangerous.

The mistake? The thing that I did is like, I get to the point that I really start to think about the knockout, which is something that I never thought about it. It just happened.

Yeah, so I was. I feel like I have to give a result, so that's why I was rushing. So I understand that night I went back and watched that fight.

And I saw me fight, I'm like, Who is that guy? He just looked like me, but I don't recognize why he's rushing.

Why he's doing this?

So then I understand, I'm like, okay, maybe you just have to go back to your previous, the previous way, the previous you, and then things will be fine.

Then I went back to my.

I'm in the sport to learn, I know that I have a deficiency, so I pay a lot of attention. Than those people that grew up as a athlete, you know, doing different sport. I always take that very seriously, the fact that.

I mean, maybe sometime my power hurt me to get away with stuff. But I know that I have a deficiency, you know, as far as experience and everything, even techniques.

Because sometimes I hear people say, Oh yeah, he didn't train wrestling in the training camp. I'm like, bro, come on, you think two, three months training wrestling in the training camp will out wrestle somebody that's been wrestling his entire life? No, you can't, you can't just find a way to go around.

But, you know, so that's how that's how I process things, I think about the advantage. I always think of myself as an underdog.

He knock people out. I'm like, No, I have no good strike. Everything has to involve, you know, whether it's my striking, my wrestling, my jiu-jitsu. That's why people keep training the day that you think, like, Oh, I'm good at this.

That's the day that you start to go down because you can't stay in the same place like this. You're going to permanently try to go up, and even if you are not going up, that's how you can maintain your position. But if you stay comfortable with something, that's the day that you start to lose it. So I changed everything.

I focus on everything, like all the assets. You know, that fight really helped me a lot. I think about my diet, I think about like, discipline stuff, I mean, usually I'm good with discipline, but I still think about everything. Put everything in prospect.

Like, okay, is my diet okay? By the way, after the Stipe fight, I decided to cut soda out for a couple of weeks before, and since then I never drink soda.

You know, the night before the Stipe fight, I was in the Foko de Chao eating outdoor steak.

Yeah.

I think I wasn't even in that fight, I was there, but I was still fighting Stipe. I was like, No, be patient, be patient, be patient.

So my mind was playing me really bad in that fight.

The reason why I get into combat sport, basically MMA was because it was fun. I was never going to do MMA. I just kept training, like, Oh, it's fun, I like it, let's keep going.

Then I realized that that fun wasn't there anymore and that's why I was falling down. Because I start focus on about what people think, people reaction, people feelings, and then I forget the reason why I started this sport. So now I get the second fight against Curtis Blade in China, I'm like, Okay, this might be the end.

I don't think if I lost this fight, it's going to be good for me, but at least I earned it. How I started just by fun, just go there, enjoy yourself, have fun and don't worry about what's next. And then 45 seconds, the guy was down.

And then Ken Velasquez 25 seconds. The guy was down. I was just there to have fun.

Junior dos Santos The guy was down. I'm like, seems like having fun.

And the rest? I don't control it.

You can question to yourself, I mean, I don't need a sports psychologist to tell me why I'm doing this. It's out of passion. I do this because I love it, it's not a job.

You understand?

Some people clearly need people to like.

Help them to control their self. I see that in a lot of fighters. Basically, they need like a coach or something. Somebody to tell them what to do, like they don't know like, to tell them what time to train.

Like, you know, you have a fight. You schedule your training at this time, you have this and this to work on. You can schedule that and get there every day at the same time. Do your thing.

Go home, get ready for another day. But some people do need somebody to get them that.

Because, again, I don't believe in so many things I don't believe in. Like, Oh, this guy is the great, he's a great trainer, he can do this, No.

I believe that everything comes from a fighter and the energy that people around him can bring can help him win. So in my team, I favor people's energy, people like the energy that they bring around. You know, I favor them, and that's how I judge if somebody is best or not.

It's by his energy and that's how I get along with pretty much everybody of my team. I judge everybody based on his energy. If I feel like this, I'd rather have a good person next to me and then not to say my team.

My team is great, they are all great, everybody is very professional, committed. But if I feel like somebody has this energy and not even great as great, I prefer that person than somebody that is a great trainer. And don't bring that energy in because the energy is very important.

You know when you start to get tired, when you're in the tough situation. The voice that you can listen and still trust is more important than the technique that you can learn. You can't know all the techniques in the world, and if you get there, your mind is not right, you are not doing shit, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I remember even how we get together, he wasn't much like a coach. I was in fighting junior Docentos and I have only Dewey Cooper with Markel on my team. And I reached out, I asked Markel, like, we should bring somebody in the corner or something?

And he talked about Eric, and I'm like, I always meet Eric around and he's nice, and I'm like, Yes, let's try him. And then we get to the locker. Suddenly, I feel the energy was great.

You know, I'm like, man, this is good, I like this vibe. Yeah, in my team, that for me is enough.

You know, that's why, like, sometimes I understand. Once I saw Mike Perry, he went to a fight with only his wife in his corner, and then people was criticizing him. I'm like, I understand him.

He's doing the right thing, he understand how the games work. He just want a voice that can speak to him when he's tired, somebody that he trusts, right?

And all the stuff and everything.

Nobody going to say, Oh, knock him out now, you know, right? It's just it's fighting game, is mental, more mental, and improvisation.

M.M.

So we talk about the goal, what is the goal, what is the deficiency, what do we want, where do we want to get by the fight?

We are 12 weeks out, okay, what is what we want to work on and what would be the good space? Then we get that schedule then with the boxing team we speak around.

But I always try to get my team together, so sometimes they can just work together. They don't always need to come to me on staff, you know, my team can communicate together, also on my schedule. But yes.

You can train hard for three months and feel great every day and don't feel like something's wrong, right? No, that means you're not doing something right.

It's just boxing. Oh, you're not going to. You don't risk injury for your knee, and that because now I always think about my knee. Then you get there, you start to hit mid-hit parts, do all those stuff, always your hands up, and then your shoulders start to hurt. Then you throw more punches in two weeks than you have ever thrown in a training camp in the two-month, two, three-month training camp.

Then I'm like, Ah, there is a difference, you know, your shoulder feels different. It's not the same thing in MMA. You throw one, two kick, one, two, three kick one. Take down daily boxing, wrestling, cage wrestling, all those stuff. Now in boxing, your hands have to go all the time.

When he's not going, he has to be on your face, protecting your face, otherwise you're going to eat that punch, clearly.

They know, okay, Monday and Tuesday we went hard on this, Wednesday has to be slow on this. You know, maybe work on technique or like, on the strength on this and that, all those aspects. And that's why a team is very good about, because you can, like by yourself, think about everything.

And sometimes you just go to a sparring and that one is hard, the guy gives you a hard time. You push, the pace is high and then next day maybe you need to recovery, not like recovery, but slow it down. Give your shoulder some rest because you always end up on maybe heavy bags. Like, it's all about that balance.

But it's like, two, three, two, three a week.