Francis Ngannou has an infamous contract dispute with the UFC. Ngannou is determined to become a free agent to the dismay of the promotion.
The tense negotiations culminated at the start of 2022, with UFC president Dana White being suspiciously absent when it came time to put the belt on Ngannou.
Not to mention the anonymous text Ngannou’s camp received in lead up to Cyril Gane clash. Nevertheless Ngannou prevailed and is likely to be among the first athletes to put the real squeeze on the UFC.
Even though UFC has backed out of Stipe Miocic, Jon JOnes clash that was negotiated for December – that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re moving on to making Jones face Ngannou.
In a new podcast with Joe Pompliano, Ngannou revealed that there’s no movement on his contract.
“Maybe Jon Jones, if we get things sorted out,” he said. “Because this contract situation hasn’t been sorted.”
Ngannou indicated that his misstep in dealing with Dana White was mentioning he would renegotiate after every bout.
“The contract that I had was the contract that I signed five years ago. Usually almost nobody stays in the contract five years. It’s just to hold you, to have control. After a year and a half, two years, they’ll come to re-negotiate and add double.”
“But they know by the time they come to double, your value is like five times what it is. So they always have a step on you and you can’t say no because if you say no, you still have years in that contract and you’re probably running out of money.”
“That’s something UFC does the best: they control you,” Ngannou added.
“And when they think you have something in your mind, they freeze you to make you run out of money. They know how much you’re making. They can imagine how much you’re spending, so they know. In the past three years I was refusing to re-sign a contract. So what happened?”
“I get freezed. 10 to 12 months between each fight. Why? Because I was refusing contract. Now I’m like okay … let’s wait. They know you’ll run out of money. At that point I needed two to three fights a year to subsidize my lifestyle. They know that and they make sure you don’t have those fights.”
Ngannou was previously adamant that any new contract must allow for the opportunity to box. Tyson Fury is famously interested in boxing Ngannou and is even flexible about rules and settings.