Tyson Fury v Francis Ngannou

[Denilson3.0]

We have the potential for the most goated 1-0 record EVER

This is a pretty big success story for Ngannou.

He won the UFC heavyweight belt. Then he agreed to fight Jon Jones but UFC didn't want to pay them for the superfight. Then the UFC tried to force Ngannou to take a multi-fight deal to get a raise for fighting ANYONE. So, he held out and took a fight against Cyril Gane with everything on the line (if he loses, he loses all leverage to negotiate a new contract). Francis entered that fight with tears in one of his knees, but fought anyway and STILL won.

So Ngannou, fresh off his win made his contract requests to the UFC who turned him down again.

The way Dana treated Francis was disgusting. He was hyping him up previously before Francis entered contract renegotiations. Dana then starts badmouthing him. Dana thought he was a naive- happy to be here unintelligent brute from Africa he could control and manipulate.

Francis moved on and the UFC painted Francis as a coward. They made him out to be running from Jon Jones. Meanwhile, he went to negotiate with other organizations whose promoters ALSO threw him under the bus. Strikeforce and ONE FC's promoters both publicly dropped out of negotiations and said Francis wanted too much.

Ngannou still got himself a great deal with PFL. He got paid, got more promotion and facilities for fighters in Africa, and most importantly...he got rights to negotiate exhibitions. The UFC NEVER lets fighters do this (they only made an exception for Conor McGregor, who they continue to bow to at all turns). Hmm I wonder why ? Well, he has the right complexion. Anyway, that key piece of the deal opened the door for Ngannou to chase a big boxing match.

But Francis' options were drying up. Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder talked about it, but basically seemed to use the Ngannou option as leverage to negotiate other professional boxing matches. Fury was negotiating with Usyk at the time, but due to Fury not wanting any of Usyk that fell through. So, suddenly Fury was available and other HW's had their match-ups set or close to set. So Ngannou's patience paid off for the second time. First, he waited to get a deal for what he felt he was worth and then he got the Fury fight.

He did all that, while negotiating mostly for himself. I'm not sure about the Boxing negotiations, but Ngannou supposedly handled the PFL deal himself for the most part. Francis got the bag from PFL, now he gets the boxing bag too.