The UFC would've been better off just letting Ngannou box

[RichardHarrow]

Ngannou never thought he was Mcgregor lol. But he did think that he had the opportunity to gain a lot of fame and money by boxing and he was absolutely right. If your argument is that Ngannou made a mistake by leaving the UFC, I think the majority of fight fans in the world would disagree with you.

arguing from the UFCs perspective. Ngannou did well for himself.

 

[vinnie245]

They give in to Ngannous demands then all the top fighters will want the same thing and the floodgates will open, a headache that UFC would rather not deal with.
Also stop comparing him to Conor, Conor is the biggest MMA draw in history by a country mile, Ngannou......... isnt.

 

[RockyLockridge]

How did the fans lose?

What kind of question is that?

No francis vs jones, no francis vs Aspinall

 

[killakillakilla]

They give in to Ngannous demands then all the top fighters will want the same thing and the floodgates will open, a headache that UFC would rather not deal with.
Also stop comparing him to Conor, Conor is the biggest MMA draw in history by a country mile, Ngannou......... isnt.

I mean the solution to that is that the UFC should pay fighters their worth. If Francis can make $20 mil boxing AJ it means he is worth way more than the $1-2 mil he would get from the UFC per fight. And that’s probably one of main reasons UFC doesn’t let their fighters box- because they don’t want to be forced into a situation where they have to actually pay their fighters what they are worth in order to keep them on the roster.

 

[Fact Checker]

Yeah I’m sure they would’ve loved seeing his stock plummet being a punching bag for Boxing going a ridiculous 0-2 and getting slept in the process while going on a 2 year hiatus.

Ngannous latest PFaiL numbers are a joke, the MMA world seems to have moved on which is why nobody bought his fight against a bottom of the barrel guy like Ferreira.

 

[ultra321]

No. and this is why.

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I still think Joshua should have gone for a Hendo vs Bisping type H-Bomb and then pulled it at the last second....

 

[haj02]

Depends if the AJ fight also happened or not. If it was a one and done deal for Fury he could have come back to the UFC with his stock through the roof and the UFC would have benefited big time. But the AJ fight made him less marketable than he was before he ever went to boxing. If he'd have come back to the UFC after that AJ fight and beaten Jon and/or Tom it would have made the whole division look even dumber than it already does.

Why do you think that his fight against AJ did so poorly in terms of PPV numbers if his stock was through the roof. Everyone likes to talk like they are big Francis fans but no one bought his fight. reddit.com/r/mma has 3.3 million members whom the majority like to gurgle Francis balls because "he stood up to Dana", why do you think less than 2 percent of them bought his fight vs AJ?

 

[Alacran]

What kind of question is that?

No francis vs jones, no francis vs Aspinall

MMA fans are fickle, they will move on

 

[method115]

I think this perspective has been proven wrong and it assumes that fight fans are dumb. Do you think that fight fans are unable to differentiate between mma and boxing? I haven't heard one person claim that boxers are tougher than MMA fighters after the Francis vs Anthony fight. Francis losing to Anthony in boxing did not hurt MMA's reputation at all. In fact, it added fans to Francis' base.

It's not just about fight fans. The UFC has a large community of casual viewers as well and they don't really understand. You can't just market to the most hardcore of your audience.

In my personal opinion it was a smart move. You don't want fighters to keep requesting this every time they get the belt. They let Connor do it and now Francis tried to do it. It has to be stopped or you're going to have all your champs getting knocked out in boxing to try and get big pay days.

 

[markg171]

The UFC held up Francis' fighting career for over a year in contract dispute because they didn't want to let him box.

Your very first sentence is wrong. Francis was injured for that year regardless.

Ain't reading the rest of that nonsense.

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

Why do you think that his fight against AJ did so poorly in terms of PPV numbers if his stock was through the roof. Everyone likes to talk like they are big Francis fans but no one bought his fight. reddit.com/r/mma has 3.3 million members whom the majority like to gurgle Francis balls because "he stood up to Dana", why do you think less than 2 percent of them bought his fight vs AJ?

Honestly, I dunno. Could be that it was on Saudi time which was inconvenient for the US PPV market (which were the only numbers ever publicly discussed) could be that things just naturally draw more when they happen under the UFC banner, could be that the ridiculously low numbers put out are BS propaganda to discredit Ngannou. Most likely a combination of those. I highly doubt it failed to get buys in six figures globally considering it involved Joshua as well, and looking at the amount of online and media attention it got.

But I mean...are you honestly arguing that if Ngannou had returned to the UFC still champ and having arguably just beaten the (at the time) consensus no1 HW boxer IN A BOXING MATCH it wouldnt have done a lot for his stock and by extension the UFC HW divisions? really?

 

[killakillakilla]

Why do you think that his fight against AJ did so poorly in terms of PPV numbers if his stock was through the roof. Everyone likes to talk like they are big Francis fans but no one bought his fight. reddit.com/r/mma has 3.3 million members whom the majority like to gurgle Francis balls because "he stood up to Dana", why do you think less than 2 percent of them bought his fight vs AJ?

Because the AJ vs Ngannou card started at 10 am lol.

 

[CatchtheseHands]

Yeah I’m sure they would’ve loved seeing his stock plummet being a punching bag for Boxing going a ridiculous 0-2 and getting slept in the process while going on a 2 year hiatus.

Ngannous latest PFaiL numbers are a joke, the MMA world seems to have moved on which is why nobody bought his fight against a bottom of the barrel guy like Ferreira.

MMA fans are fickle, they will move on

Yea, sure guys. The MMA world has moved on, mean while there was a bunch of threads leading up to Francis' PFL debut and after. Some of which being like 20 pages. Not to mention the rumored thread about Deontay vs Francis already has close to 10 pages.

Everyone sure has moved on.

 

[JBJ was here]

I have no idea how Francis was never a great draw. Especially with the highlight reel that he has and with his story.

Ngannou isn't good at selling a fight, and while he has a great highlight reel, the stuff that doesn't make the reel largely ranges from boring to really painful to watch.

 

[markg171]

I know, and that was one of the reasons why he didn't re-sign. Those contracts lock you in P diddy style

Exactly which organization do you see PFL letting Francis fight for?

 

[markg171]

Alex has none of what you listed either though (unless Chama counts as a one liner) and says even less than Francis yet he is a bigger draw somehow when they are both finishing machines and have origins stories that you would find in books and movies. Make it make sense.

Seriously?

It's called charisma and a genuine warrior spirit. Alex has that. Francis does not. It's not that hard.

Alex is out on Instagram live talking to his followers driving his Lambo around as the UFC calls and asks him to defend on 10 days notice. He accepts without hesitation or any negotiation whatsoever, hangs up, smiles at the camera, and simply says Chama.

Exactly as you expect him to.

 

[haj02]

Honestly, I dunno. Could be that it was on Saudi time which was inconvenient for the US PPV market (which were the only numbers ever publicly discussed) could be that things just naturally draw more when they happen under the UFC banner, could be that the ridiculously low numbers put out are BS propaganda to discredit Ngannou. Most likely a combination of those. I highly doubt it failed to get buys in six figures globally considering it involved Joshua as well, and looking at the amount of online and media attention it got.

But I mean...are you honestly arguing that if Ngannou had returned to the UFC still champ and having arguably just beaten the (at the time) consensus no1 HW boxer IN A BOXING MATCH it wouldnt have done a lot for his stock and by extension the UFC HW divisions? really?

What I'm asking is why if his stock was so high did no one give a shit against a guy who had done over 1 million buys in a card with a similar fight time against Usyk? Less than 5000 people bought the fight in the states which is not indicative of someone being any sort of PPV attraction. It's a tough pill to swallow but no one really cares about Francis in terms of fandom, he doesn't have fans - he just attracts contrarians and anti Dana White/Jon Jones people to defend him in arguments when the facts are clear, he's just not a popular fighter for whatever reason.

 

[killakillakilla]

It's not just about fight fans. The UFC has a large community of casual viewers as well and they don't really understand. You can't just market to the most hardcore of your audience.

What is it that you think "casual fans" don't understand? MMA and Boxing are not rocket science yall. You don't think "casual fans" can differentiate between boxing and mma? You don't think "casual fans" understand that boxing and mma require different skill sets? I'm pretty sure these concepts are not difficult for "casual fans" to understand. Once again - MMA and boxing are not rocket science.

 

[jooohnmatrix]

In the boxing world Francis is like a prostitute but instead of getting pounded with the male genitalia he gets pounded with fists. If anything he’s caused great damage to mma’s reputation amongst the casual boxing fans. Also made mma fans look like idiots thinking he could make a splash in boxing.

 

[markg171]

If Ngannous stock was sinking you wouldn’t hear his name in mma communities as much as before, but that’s not what is occurring. His name is still brought up all the time, and now his name is also routinely brought up in boxing communities as well.

Francis made more money in 2 boxing fights than he would’ve his entire UFC career. There are many more people in the world that know who he is now than before he boxed Fury. I’m sure his social media following has grown as well. I’m not sure how or what metrics you are using to determine that his stock has gone down. I think the opposite has occurred.

Francis' name is brought up in relation to fighting people in the UFC. Not PFL where he is.

Not a single person gives a flying fuck about PFL's actual HW title that's on the line next week or matching up that winner with Francis to "unify" their two HW belts. Which is obviously what PFL's going to do next year to cater to Francis as they already did by not signing him to their HW division where he'd have to fight 4x to be their PFL champion and it would reset yearly. You know, as the "L" in "PFL" stands for. They'll have him fight their 2024 PFL HW champ in early 2025 and then likely start their 2025 season without either of them in it.

And which their unification superfight is going to do another 10,000 buys. If that given it only did 10,000 cause Renan was at least somewhat intriguing as a fellow big guy and coming off a credible enough win over Bader.

Rinse and repeat that Ngannou fights the 2025 PFL HW champ in early 2026 assuming he hasn't lost or retired yet. Just bringing him out every time they get a new PFL champ for him to fight as a "final boss".

The actual only somewhat interesting fight in PFL for Francis is Nemkov and they'll never make it. They don't want Nemkov LNPing Ngannou and they don't want Ngannou KOing him.

Francis' MMA career is dead.