The UFC, as an MMA promotion has strict rules and guidelines which the fighters need to follow. One of these rules is that fighting outside the UFC promotion is a no-go. The fighters are very rarely allowed to do so, and when they are, the UFC needs to have a great interest in it as well.
When it comes to ‘untying fighter’s hands’ Dana White is as stubborn as a mule. This time Francis Ngannou, the Cameroonian MMA fighter, and most importantly current UFC Heavyweight champion wants to walk the distance and show up in a debut fight outside the UFC. He is willing to arrange a boxing match with Tyson Fury, the Gypsy King.
Francis Ngannou To Dana White – You’ll Give Me Free Hands To Fight Tyson Fury, Or I’ll Not Re-Sign!
Fury’s holding the heavyweight boxing title for two and a half years now and is open to beating up everybody that shows interest in it. His professional boxing record is an astonishing 32-0-1. This makes him one of the ‘untouchable’ boxing champions in the history of the sport.
Back to Ngannou. This January he successfully defended his title against Ciryl Gane. Even though the fight did not end in a knockout, he won by a unanimous decision. As always, he showed great skills and they both offered a great fighting show to the world.
After the fight, Francis ‘The Predator’ Ngannou did not hold back and told the press about the issues that he has with the UFC. Mostly he complained about the way he was treated as a champion. Because of this, Dana White did not show up at the press conference and did not put the belt on Francis’s waist.
Dana White, of course, demanded this and said: “For anybody that thinks I was showing any kind of disrespect towards Francis — I saw Francis all week, you idiots. I shook his hand, I said hi to him. I was out there for the stare-downs, the whole thing.”
They had an ongoing ‘beef’. That was obvious, but was it a reason for Ngannou not to receive his UFC belt after he successfully defended it? Or course not. What kind of sportsmanship does the UFC show with this? And this ‘sorry ass’ justification from Dana White does not make things any better.
In any case, his contract is automatically extended due to the championship clause in it. He now needs to have at least three more fights for the promotion, or one full year, depending on what they will agree on.
In The Predator’s eyes – when signing in for the UFC you are kept in captivity. You are told what and when to do, you are being controlled, and most importantly for him, you are not allowed to be involved in any other competitive sport. On top of this, you do not have any kind of health insurance.
All the other clauses in the contract can be somehow explained and make sense in some kind of a way, however, the no-insurance clause is what is tickling the public’s senses. Why would the greatest MMA promotion in the world not pay insurance for its fighters? This is a question that is really bothering me, and all the UFC followers in general.
In what other way can the UFC show that they care for their fighters? There is no other way. Without health insurance, you are basically telling them ‘fuck you’ once an injury happens. And injuries are a common thing in this sport.
“You can’t do anything. No rights is what you have. You are signing a one-sided contract. We don’t even have health insurance, even while we’re putting our bodies on the line to put on the show. You’re risking everything. There are a lot of things. You say I am an independent contractor that’s why I don’t have insurance. Then treat me as such if I am. That’s probably the thing that I hated most about this, how they hold all the cards, the power to just destroy you. As soon as you don’t say yes, they just take you down. There’s something wrong with me with that kind of thing, that I just can’t take it.” – The Predator said at the post-fight press conference of the UFC 270.
Since then several months have passed and the Predator spoke with some UFC representatives regarding his frustration and they tried to solve some things. According to him, during these friendly dinners and meetings he had a good time speaking about sports and fights in general, but business-wise they did not reach any agreements.
“The Tyson Fury fight has to be part of the discussion. It has to be part of the discussion because if that’s not part of the discussion now, it will never be. If I sign another contract now, and basically the same model of a contract, I’m screwed. It’s not happening ever. So we have to figure out a way to implement this into a contract.” – Ngannou said.
Exceptions like this happened in the past. This is not something new to them. However, we are not aware of the contracts that these other fighters have signed with them. Maybe they thought of it when initially signing with the UFC and asked for this to be present from the beginning. Maybe they gave some percentage of their ‘outside’ fights earnings to the UFC. Who can tell?
Conor McGregor fought Floyd Mayweather. This happened to be a superfight. Nobody complained about it. They made it happen.
What is the difference now with Francis Ngannou?
Even though we all ask this question we all already know the answer to it. Conor McGregor for example raised a great amount of noise before and after the boxing fight. This helped with boosting the UFC’s popularity. With Francis Ngannou, the sport, or the promotion will not gain the same amount of popularity.
But on the other side, take into consideration the situation where The Predator beats up Tyson Fury. He will gain a great amount of attention. And to be honest this is not an excluded outcome. Ngannou is a brutal fighter. He has great boxing skills as well.
So, if the only issue that the UFC has with Francis Ngannou is the Tyson Fury fight – why not give it to him? It’s not like he does not want to fight for the UFC anymore. As he said. He is looking forward to a Stipe Miocic trilogy fight, he wants to fight Jon Jones, and however, in the meantime, he wants to do this on his own. And in the end, we are still not ready to say goodbye to him. We still want to watch him compete in the octagon.
