Woefully Unprepared: Ngannou’s Coach Fernand Lopez Hits Joe Rogan for Epic Training Failure

"Ngannou should have trained with Lesnar instead of calling him out."


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Francis Ngannou was happy to admit he learned a lot during his loss to heavyweight champ Stipe Miocic, but Ngannou’s coach Fernand Lopez isn't too happy with some of the criticism his student has been getting. Ngannou came into UFC 220 with a metric ton of hype, but a lot of that praise turned to confusion

. . .

An example of this would be Joe Rogan, who went from singing Ngannou’s praise as a one in a million athlete in his Mike Tyson days to questioning whether the fighter had even bothered to train wrestling before the fight.

Joe Rogan suspects Francis Ngannou didn’t train any wrestling for UFC 220 title bout

“Before, everyone was saying ‘Oh my God, he’s in tremendous shape, everything is amazing!’” Rogan said on his podcast. “Then afterwards it’s like ‘Oh, he doesn’t train on the ground.’ What? He doesn’t train on the ground? They go ‘All he wants to do is strike.’ You can’t let him do that. You can’t let him. He’s going to fight a Division-I wrestler. How is he going to do this? How is he going to stand up? He’s going to magically get up? You have to train it.”

“I was surprised that someone like Joe Rogan said that Francis didn’t know what to do on the ground,” he said. “I think people should go check the fight again ... If Francis didn’t know what he was doing on the ground, how come Stipe [Miocic], who has way more experience in professional MMA and who has vicious ground and pound, how come Stipe didn’t finish Francis on the ground if Francis didn’t know what he was doing?”

“The fight was on the ground nearly 80% of the time. So, how come he didn’t finish him? Francis has a good ground game and if you check at the end of the fourth round, Francis went for a heel hook and it made Stipe run away. Francis could’ve stood up, but he didn’t have enough energy, that’s why he just laid down. We spent a lot of time working on his ground game with legit black belts. We spent time in Vegas and he was working with Vinny Magalhaes. He showed very good things. Stipe had head control, but he didn’t finish [Ngannou]. Stipe had a guillotine, but he didn’t finish him. Stipe escaped a heel hook from Francis – when was the last time you saw a heavyweight go for a heel hook? It’s not fair to say he didn’t work his ground game. He did. It’s not fair to say that Francis didn’t work his wrestling. He did. Wrestling isn’t just about attacking, it’s about defending and he showed good things on that.”

https://www.mmamania.com/2018/1/24/...oach-on-joe-rogan-wrestling-criticism-ufc-220
 
Stipe was an NCAA wrestler and Rogan expects Ngannou to completely negate that with just 4-5 years of training?
 
Francis simply outclassed, happens to everyone eventually, he will only get better from here.
 
Typical Joe "hyperbole" rogan.

On your nuts or Vag one moment then off of them the next.
 
Joe Rogan's a company man, always will be.
 
You'd think someone who was hyping him so much would have at least heard about his ground skills from training.
 
Francis learned more in that fight than he would have in a 6 month wrestling boot camp. Fighters lose. It's part of the game.

He's beaten wrestlers before. I'm not surprised if he thinks his wrestling would be "ok" against a guy that tends to strike. Stipe isn't known as a lay n pray guy despite his wrestling background.
 
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Francis simply outclassed, happens to everyone eventually, he will only get better from here.
It doesn't seem like his coach thinks he was though, sadly. I agree with you though, Francis will grow a lot from this fight.
 
francis has great chin, great power, and great heart. Could be a future heavyweight champ
 
Typical Joe "hyperbole" rogan.

On your nuts or Vag one moment then off of them the next.
Can't stand that about Rogan. As much as I disliked Ronda, I thought the way he threw her and Edmund under the bus after kissing there asses on his podcast, was disgraceful.

He didn't waste time either. He recorded a podcast shit talking her on the plane before he even landed in his studio.
 
Alright Then....

It should be very clear Francis needs to run away from those coaches as fast as possible. Total imbecile.
 
Rogan comes off like a dumb shill after switching from "one in a million athlete" to "he was not even supposed to be there" about Ngannou.
 
Stipe has been grappling way longer than Francis has even been doing MMA. Francis is still so early in his career. Just give it time and keep working hard. No amount of training in this one camp was gonna stop Stipe from getting him down. Francis just isn’t on the same level as Stipe.... yet. But I was impressed with Francis. Hopefully he starts to train in the states with a top team to train with some of the best grapplers soon.

He showed a ton of a heart, a great chin, and the dude has insane power. Dude touched Stipe 30 times and look at Stipes face. Guy is still an animal and I’d favor him against any HW not named Stipe.
 
I honestly can't wait to see ngannou 2.0 you have to respect a dude who was COMPLETELY gassed and still absorbed shots and didnt even get wobbled and still had the will to fight. That is scary shit. Woodley had shit cardio and learned to manage his energy and explode in certain spots and looks great now. Imagine if ngannou masters this and tightens his boxing and TD defense a bit. Its gonna be RIP heavyweight division. I wish he started training as a kid like everyone else. Even if he loses from this point forward I'll never consider him having a fair shake only because of how damn late he started in the game.
 
I love how the trainer admits the fight was on the ground for "80% of the time" because that's where Stipe wanted it not Francis, but then gets upset that people say Francis didn't work on his grappling enough. Idiot.

Stipe quite rightly didn't take any risks with such a heavy hitter, more interested in controlling the position so not stood up where Francis had a punchers chance & he sure didn't want to give Francis the opportunity to reverse & get on top of him hammering blows down. To think that somehow is a credit to his losing fighter shows just how deluded the trainer is & how badly Francis needs to be in a proper camp.
 
Ngannou looked absolutely horrible on the ground. Like, whitebelt, first month of training horrible. The only success he had there at all was getting up to his knees on occasion, which is purely a testament to his insane strength & physicality. Technically, he was completely owned there. His hip movement was non-existent, and that 'heel hook' attempt was laughable.

If this coach's reaction is to be pleased with all that, and lash out at Joe Rogan instead, it's no wonder Ngannou turned in the performance he did, and we shouldn't expect much more than that. Francis needs to get with a real blackbelt, because his ground game at the moment is absolute garbage.
 
I wouldn't say Francis didn't train the ground game

He simply is just a novice level when it comes to grappling, his ground fighting abilities are essentially just basic takedown defense and survival mode from bottom side control.

In short his grappling abilities are purely survival, he didn't get finished on the ground but that's certainly all he did.
 
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