Former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou is set to face lineal boxing heavyweight champion Tyson Fury this October. Ngannou has long been gunning for the fight, but his representative Marquel Martin revealed on The MMA Hour that the UFC tried to squash it by suggesting a fight between Fury and Jon Jones.
“I think for everyone that has been initiated within the UFC and kind of really understands it, it’s no surprise, right?
Revealed: How The UFC Tried To SQUASH Ngannou Vs Fury
Dana is one of the best promoters that we’ve ever seen. I’ll always say that. So when we saw it, we just kind of [were] like, ‘Of course.’ Right? Of course you would say, on one end, it’s a gimmick fight. … And then on the other hand, it comes to where it’s like, ‘Oh no, we’ll put that on.’ So I’m sure that they wanted that fight.
I think they really wanted to just mess up our chances, to be quite honest. I think, for whatever reason, there’s a sour taste in their mouth when it comes to Francis. And yeah, they don’t want Francis to be able to have that opportunity. Right?
I think that was clear to us for a while. For what reason? I don’t know, you have to ask them. But it’s a moot point.” Martin continued, explaining how the UFC continually hamstrung Francis Ngannou during his time with the promotion.
“After Stipe [Miocic], it was supposed to be Jon Jones, right? I think I tweeted something long ago, somebody may be able to find it, but I literally wrote it down. I said, ‘Stipe, then we’re going to take care of Jon Jones, then we’re going to go for Tyson Fury.’
In that order. But they have their own plans and their own strategy, and for whatever reason, they just didn’t want to make it happen. I kind of feel like it was maybe the Conor McGregor effect.
Like, Conor made so much money from that boxing fight, and maybe they didn’t want to do it again, so maybe they had some business reasons.
So it’s hard to really pinpoint the exact reason. But I do know that, from our side, it would’ve been so easy and everyone would’ve been happy.
We’d still probably be with the UFC today and they would be promoting this fight potentially, right? You have the king of the MMA division, Francis. No disrespect to Stipe, but we’d just beaten Stipe.
So then if we were to beat, which I think Francis would have, knocked out Jon Jones, then what? You beat the heavyweight GOAT, then the GOAT of all GOATs. Then the next thing you do is, what?
Go see who’s really the baddest man on the planet. But I don’t think they thought it that way. So no harm, no foul, but we’re going to prove it.”
