Francis Ngannou had an extraordinarily heavy fight camp. A lot was hanging on the line. Following the fight Ngannou revealed he had sustained a major knee injury during the fight camp.
With about 3 weeks leading up to the fight Ngannou had completely torn his MCL – and partially torn his ACL destabilizing his right knee.
In a conversation with Ariel Helwani Ngannou subsequently revealed that the knee was weighing heavily on him during the first two rounds of the fight at UFC 270.
Ngannou, known for having other-worldly knockout power, shocked everyone by implementing a takedown based gameplan to get the unanimous decision victory.
However, Ngannou’s performance might have been more impressive than previously thought. In an interview after the fight with ESPN’s Megan Olivi, Francis shared that he suffered a terrible knee injury and was ready to call off the fight:
“About three and half weeks out of the fight I hurt my knee, I had an injured ACL and a damaged ACL.” Ngannou then added “I was about to call out the fight but, you know, I wanted to wait until the last moment to make a decision”
“But with everything going on with this fight, I couldn’t call it off. I felt so ready… I was so ready! So even though I was scared about my knee I couldn’t cancel the fight.”
Ngannou appears to have gone in for a doctor’s appointment since and is looking at roughly 9 months in terms of recovery. His manager Marquel Martin revealed:
“Upon his return, we plan on getting surgery and starting the recovery process so we can get him back to 100 percent as soon as possible,” said Marquel in an interview with ESPN. “In the meantime, we hope we can find a peaceful resolution in these contract talks. We’d like to thank all the fans for their continued support and belief in Francis.”
“He’s going to have to get surgery likely in March,” Martin said. “Then the timeline can vary, obviously, but probably looking at 9 to 10 months [recovery time].”
Surgery will be performed by Dr. Neal ElAttrache- a well-known orthopedic surgeon who is also serving as the lead physician for teams such as the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Rams. He’s also the one that operated on Georges St Pierre and Conor McGregor.