Francis Ngannou may have had a rough past with the UFC, but Daniel Cormier says the promotion is not upset to see their former heavyweight champion achieve success in boxing.
Francis Ngannou uplifted the entire sport last weekend: Daniel Cormier
Ngannou’s recent 10-round contest with WBC champ Tyson Fury in Riyadh is all the craze right now. Although he lost his boxing debut via a close & controversial split decision, Ngannou gained much acclaim for holding his ground strong against Fury, and even dropped the top heavyweight in round three.
Seeing his brilliance in the squared circle, many fight fans believe Ngannou has a successful future in boxing. There are calls for a rematch with Fury, a contest with Anthony Joshua, MMA return with PFL or even a mixed rules contest with Deontay Wilder.
Another hot topic related to Ngannou is how the UFC is reacting to his success, knowing that their association ended in much umbrage. UFC prez Dana White’s “fumbled the bag” statement on Ngannou’s exit is now being flipped back onto the promotion by the fans, saying that the UFC has missed out on co-promoting such a huge event.
As its imagined that the UFC top brass now has lots of unhappy faces, Daniel Cormier insists the opposite. Even though he was one of those who criticised Ngannou leaving the UFC back then, the former two division champion turned analyst believes that there’s no room to not be happy to see the Cameroonian’s success.
“You see Junior dos Santos, Izzy, Kamaru, the legend Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture,” said Cormier on ESPN MMA’s DC & RC show. “So many great mixed martial artists were in attendance last weekend to watch Francis Ngannou do something that was unprecedented, unexpected, and really did turn out better than anyone ever could have expected.”
“There’s this idea that the UFC is upset that Francis Ngannou did what he did. Why would they be? Francis Ngannou uplifted the entire sport last weekend. Francis Ngannou went out there as a mixed martial arts world champion, fought the lineal heavyweight champion of the world, and lost by split decision,” he added. [H/T MMA News]
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