UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou is not buying Dana White’s explanation for the interim heavyweight title fight at UFC 265.
On Thursday, the UFC president exclusively told MMA Junkie that he thinks the interim belt on the line between Derrick Lewis (25-7 MMA, 16-5 UFC) and Ciryl Gane (9-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) is the perfect way to set up a title unification clash with Ngannou (16-3 MMA, 11-2 UFC) down the line and likened it to the boxing world.
“When they fight Francis, it’s like the old days of the IBF vs. the WBC champion, and you unify the belts,” White told MMA Junkie. “That’s exactly how I look at it.”
Dana White admits his relationship with @Francis_Ngannou has been shaky.
“I don’t dislike Francis. … We’ll try to make him happy.”@MMAJunkieJohn‘s interview: https://t.co/VTfnoicwmH pic.twitter.com/OTxPz4t8lX
— MMA Junkie (@MMAjunkie) August 6, 2021
That’s not sufficient to Ngannou, who won the heavyweight belt with a vicious second-round knockout of Stipe Miocic at UFC 260 in March. Ngannou poked holes in White’s logic and snapped back on the numerous ways in which it doesn’t add up.
“I heard something today (from Dana White) like, ‘It’s going to be like the IBF and WBC unified title.’ No, there’s not a unified title,” Ngannou told Sirius XM’s Jimmy Smith. “It’s one promotion, it’s one belt, the UFC belt. It’s not like it has a different name like the PFL coming to challenge the UFC, then we talk about unify the belt. I was there expecting to fight, and they just come up with some sort of interim title. That was very surprising because in the past we didn’t get an interim title, because Stipe wasn’t active and they didn’t even consider that at all. They didn’t want to talk about it.
“I’m at the point where, when it comes to me, nothing good is coming my way, it looks like. They aren’t making anything good to come my way. It’s OK, but I think at this point regarding my last run, I deserve at least some respect as a UFC champion. I’ve been down, I know my low time, and I face it.”
Ngannou seemingly has been on the outs with the UFC brass since shortly after he became champion. The promotion wanted him to headline Saturday’s UFC 265 with Lewis, but because of an overseas trip to his native Cameroon, the timeline didn’t add up for him.
That’s when the promotion moved forward and booked Lewis vs. Gane for the interim strap, and Ngannou said it’s one of the many “inappropriate techniques” the UFC utilizes to put pressure on someone like himself to alter his terms.
“We were quite surprised about that,” Ngannou said. “It was just like two-and-a-half months after I won the fight, and the past month was so much pressure. At this time, I shouldn’t be surprised anymore about anything. At the end of the day, I’m the UFC heavyweight champion of the world. I’m still the champion. It’s not like somebody give it to me. I earned it. It’s my title. What they are doing now out there, it doesn’t matter to me. … If somebody say I don’t want to fight, they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Since negotiations for UFC 265 fell apart, Ngannou said he hasn’t received any new information about his future. White walked back on a social media spat with one of Ngannou’s representatives, and since then he’s heard nothing.
“Radio silence,” Ngannou said. “It’s been radio silence. Hopefully they will not come out and be like, ‘Oh, you’re fighting this day.’ Then I’m like, ‘It doesn’t make sense.’ Then they’re like, ‘Oh, he doesn’t want to fight.’ I won’t do that again, because apparently they are really good at this type of thing.”
Ngannou said he’s not looking to play hard ball going forward. He wants to fight quite badly and knows, as champion, it’s his duty to take on all comers. He just wants it to be set up in good faith.
“If you ask me who I would like to fight, I would say Jon Jones,” Ngannou said. “But we all know Jon Jones is not going to fight any time soon, and I don’t want to sit there waiting for him. That’s not what should define my schedule. I want to fight, and as a champion, I want to defend my title. But I just want to make it right for me. That’s all. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who it is. When you’re champion, you kind of just assume that you can fight all the contenders. It doesn’t matter the order of them. You’re going to fight them. If they’re a legit contender, you have to fight them. It’s not your choice.”