Fernand Lopez, the head coach of Francis Ngannou isn’t’ too happy with some of the criticism of his student has been getting. Stipe Miocic earned a dominant victory over Francis Ngannou at UFC 220 & it was all Stipe Miocic on that night. Ngannou was breathing heavy & he looked tired after 1st round. Joe Rogan stated that Francis Ngannou didn’t train any wrestling for UFC 220 title bout. MMA Factory Paris head coach Fernand Lopez defended his student against these accusations leading into UFC 220.
“Before, everyone was saying ‘Oh my God, he’s in tremendous shape, everything is amazing!’”
“Then afterwards it’s like ‘Oh, he doesn’t train on the ground.’ What? He doesn’t train on the ground? They go ‘All he wants to do is strike.’ You can’t let him do that. You can’t let him. He’s going to fight a Division-I wrestler. How is he going to do this? How is he going to stand up? He’s going to magically get up? You have to train it.”
“I was surprised that someone like Joe Rogan said that Francis didn’t know what to do on the ground,” he said. “I think people should go check the fight again … If Francis didn’t know what he was doing on the ground, how come Stipe [Miocic], who has way more experience in professional MMA and who has vicious ground and pound, how come Stipe didn’t finish Francis on the ground if Francis didn’t know what he was doing?”
MMA Factory Paris head coach Fernand Lopez had some words about that with MMANYTT
“The fight was on the ground nearly 80% of the time. So, how come he didn’t finish him? Francis has a good ground game and if you check at the end of the fourth round, Francis went for a heel hook and it made Stipe run away. Francis could’ve stood up, but he didn’t have enough energy, that’s why he just laid down. We spent a lot of time working on his ground game with legit black belts. We spent time in Vegas and he was working with Vinny Magalhaes. He showed very good things. Stipe had head control, but he didn’t finish [Ngannou]. Stipe had a guillotine, but he didn’t finish him. Stipe escaped a heel hook from Francis – when was the last time you saw a heavyweight go for a heel hook? It’s not fair to say he didn’t work his ground game. He did. It’s not fair to say that Francis didn’t work his wrestling. He did. Wrestling isn’t just about attacking, it’s about defending and he showed good things on that.”
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