Now that the dust has settled on the blockbuster deal taking Francis Ngannou to the PFL and most of the details have been released to the public, today I’m gonna give my thoughts and feelings on how good of a deal it is for Francis and what this means for his future and the very future of the sport.
Firstly, I’m gonna briefly go over all the details that have been released as of today. The contract Francis has signed gives him equity in the promotion, positions him as the chairman of PFL Africa, guarantees a minimum fight purse of 2 million for anyone he should face in the smart cage, gives him the freedom to box whenever he sees fitting and whenever the opportunity should present itself, he will also have the right to have his own sponsorships in the cage and also no champions clause or other contract extensions.
Dana White has claimed the reason Francis took this deal is that he “doesn’t want to take any risks” The same Francis Ngannou that defended his title without an ACL or MCL, fought out his contract, turned down the biggest contract ever offered to Heavyweight within the UFC and took the risk of becoming a free agent to get what he believes he’s worth? Do you see what I’m getting at here, that’s without even mentioning all the risks, trials and tribulations in his personal life before getting to the UFC. Francis is a risk taker and simply put is not scared of a man that walks this planet.
Francis is currently riding a 6 fight win-streak and for my money still the baddest man on the planet, his last loss coming in July of 2018 in a decision defeat against Derrick Lewis. Francis has a case of being one of the very best Heavyweights to ever grace the octagon with victories of the likes of Cain Velasquez, Alistair Overeem, Junior Dos Santos & Stipe Miocic.
As you may have already picked up, I am very much team Francis in this instance and am not of the belief that Francis “doesn’t want to take any risks” or that he’s “fumbled the bag” I instead believe he stood his ground and got a deal that best suited him and allowed him to pursue a boxing bout which is clearly something he has a great interest in.
I think what he’s done is admirable and should inspire other fighters to go out and get what they’re worth, don’t get me wrong I’d love to see Francis against Jon Jones for all the marbles, but it’s not to be at least for now anyway. We could be on the verge of a change within the UFC, with the likes of Nate Diaz, Luke Rockhold and of course, Francis all fairly recently leaving the UFC and testing out free agency maybe others will follow suit.
Subscribe
