MMA Fighting - Emergency Reaction: Francis Ngannou vs. Anthony Joshua is ON!

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

Francis Ngannou's first fight of 2024 is booked, and it will take place in the boxing ring, not an MMA cage. As MMA Fighting confirmed on Friday, Ngannou will face Anthony Joshua in a 10-round boxing match that is targeted for March, although the date is currently not finalized at this time. Following Ngannou making the decision to leave the UFC as heavyweight champion in early 2023, he went on to sign with the PFL before taking Tyson Fury to the limit in his pro boxing debut in October. Now, "The Predator" gets another massive opportunity to shake things up in boxing's heavyweight division. Following the news being announced, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, Shaun Al-Shatti, and Eric Jackman react to the news, how it benefits both fighters, discuss what it means for Ngannou's MMA future, early predictions, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Shaun Al-Shatti: @ShaunAlShatti Follow Eric Jackman: @NewYorkRic Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original, The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever.

Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded

two, ghosts in the machine. Available now, only from Audible. All right, Mike Huck here for MMAFighting.com. We're just doing a surprise reaction. You know, something big is happening and something big is happening, ladies and gentlemen.

Francis Inganu, no, he is not returning to the world of MMA. No, he is not fighting John Jones. He's returning to the world of professional boxing. Fresh off his incredible pro debut against Tyson Fury. Fransingano's next fight will be against Anthony freaking Joshua, date TBD. A lot of reports saying that it's March 9th. I'm being told sometime in March, but it's not officially a done deal yet in terms of the date. But holy moly, this news is just absolutely massive. especially at a time where there's no UFC event to look forward to this weekend. So I figured this is a great time to do it.

And who better to do it with than two of my good buddies at M.Afighting.com? We have deputy editor Shaheen Alshadhi. We have the social media guru, New York, Rick. Shaheen, I'll begin with you. Francis Ngano, to quote the song, all he does is win. Does he not? I mean, geez, Louise, heading into 2023, this man's future was a mystery, right? Was he going to re-sign with the UFC?

Was he going to fight John Jones? Jones, leaves the UFC, hashtag fumbles the bag. Everything revisionist history, we go back through it all. Knocks down Tyson Fury. We get the iconic photo of him standing over Fury laying on the mat, loses the fight, maybe wins the war in a lot of people's minds. And now his next fight is, I guess, set against Anthony Joshua. This is unbelievable, Sheen.

Your reaction to finding out this news. Unbelievable is the right word, Michael. I mean, you just, this is crazy, man. We haven't seen anything like this. And when I say that, just take a journey with me over the last 10 months, right? Just go back 10 months to about March-ish of 2023. Where are we with Francis and Gano at that point in time? He is no longer the UFC heavyweight champion.

Everyone on the entire MMA internet is calling this man a moron. You were dumb. This whole thing was so misguided. You misjudged your value. That was the big thing, right? You are not as big as you think you are. You're not as big of a deal as you think you are in your head. There's nothing out there for you.

No boxer wants to fight you and no other promotion is going to give you a big deal. BKFC is coming out and saying, we don't want Francis Ngano. One championship is out there saying, eh, Francis Ngano is asking for too much money. And what does this man do over the last 10 months? Gets an unprecedented deal from PFL, where he is part owner essentially and he's able to kind of just do whatever he wants for, also his opponent, whenever he does fight there, is going to get $2 million, which incredible on that guy. Good job by you. Comes out here, gets the Tyson Fury fight against all odds. Unbelievable to even get that far. Has the greatest debut in the history of professional boxing for the most part. Should

have won that fight. Should be the number one heavyweight in the world. And then once again, everything just breaks right for this man. It's crazy. The amount of just little side roads that had to go right for this to play out right, right? Because otherwise, we would have gotten Deonté Wilder versus Anthony Joshua. That would have been the fight right now. But Deonté Wilder goes out there, lays an egg, and Francis steps in because he is that guy. He is the biggest name for Anthony Joshua to fight right now. He is the biggest name in heavyweight boxing outside of that big main couple of Tyson and, you know, Anthony Joshua, those types. Like, he is the guy. This made so much sense the moment Deonti Wilder lost. And I'm so glad for Francis that he's

been able to do this. Because again, from everything that he was hearing 10 months ago to now having this unprecedented PFL deal and your first two boxing fights as a pro are going to be Tyson Fury and Anthony with Joshua back to back. It's unbelievable, man. This man has, this, this man has one of the most unbelievable careers already that we've ever seen in combat sports. This is just every, every little bit of this just adding to one of the most unprecedented movies that we're probably ever going to see whenever this is done. You're correct. I mean, Ariel Hawani first reported this, man you're quite familiar with. Tyson Fury.

And now Anthony Joshua? Holy smokes, man. Yeah, I mean, I think you guys have covered the Francis Ngano side of this as well as it's going to be covered. I have nothing to add there. Like, the dude is on a free roll right now and just continuing to, you know, keep rolling the dice and he's hot right now. but from the Anthony Joshua side, I think this is brilliant. I think this is the biggest and smartest thing you could possibly do. For one, you're cashing in on Francis and Ghanu's profile after the Tyson Fury fight.

You're able to have an opponent who's on the up right now, who's in heavyweight boxing. There's not a lot of guys that you can point to and say like these are the big kind of fights out there. It's kind of limited. Anthony Joshua is one of them. Tyson Fury is one of them. Francis Iganu is now about to knock off his second, which is pretty incredible. But Anthony Joshua now has a guy who's got big momentum behind him and name value. And two, if you do better than Tyson Fury did, all of a sudden the Tyson Fury versus Anthony Joshua conversation is back on and feels like the biggest fight in boxing, in heavyweight boxing history again.

You do it in Wembley Stadium. So if Anthony Joshua is able to parlay this into then and eat. even bigger fight, it will have been a master stroke. It seemed like, you know, everybody was kind of celebrating and reveling in the idea that, oh, you know, the wilder fight fell apart for the for the umpteenth time. You know, every time they've tried to book it, it fell apart, which did feel like a blow. But if he's able to parlay this into making the Tyson Fury fight feel even bigger, it will have been a huge win for Anthony Joshua. So I love it from both sides. But my first thought was about Anthony Joshua more so than Francis Inganu.

Francis Inganu, it's almost like comical at this point, like how much he's winning. Like I can't even like truly even like rationalize it to think that he went from being UFC heavyweight champion to now just like one of the biggest names in heavyway boxing is crazy. Like it still almost doesn't feel real. But the first thought I had was, man, this is the best you can do from the Anthony Joshua side. And it could eventually lead to a huge fight. And if Inganu wins, now obviously you've got the winner of. Fury Usik sitting right there for Inganu as well. So it's big on both sides of the equation.

This is an absolutely perfect fight for both sides. Go ahead. Can you imagine if Francis wins this fight? Like this man right now is the guy who at 430 a.m. in Las Vegas is just still sitting at the blackjack table on like a seven-hour heater and no one can understand what's going on. It's crazy. And you nailed it, Rick. You nailed it. This is such a win-win for both sides because obviously Francis is going to get a giant Saudi Arabia a paycheck, giant boxing paycheck. He's going to be the richest man in M.MA not named Connor McGregor by the end of this year, probably. But also for Anthony Joshua, this is so brilliant.

And Eddie Hearn knew it. Like Eddie Heard called this right after the Fury fight. He was trying to get that fight. Then whatever, it didn't end up happening, but now it's happening. You nailed it for every point you just said, this is the biggest thing that Anthony Joshua could have done. And also just the biggest connector that he could have gotten to eventually reach that Tyson Fury fight that he wants. right, or whoever it is, whether it's Usik or Fury, like this is the connecting fight to that. And it's brilliant. It's so good. It's going to be such a big deal.

Shaheen, if you're Don Davis right now, you're the PFL, you've been touting this guy as sort of the face of your franchise. We're going to back whatever he does next. And then his next fight he books after fighting Tyson Fury and taking this dude to the limit is against Anthony Joshua. They have been very, very confident that Francis is going to fight for them in some sort of about. And Francis seems like a man of principal. It seems like a man of his word. If he can do it, he will. But if he goes out there and beats Anthony Joshua, like, how could you let this guy do anything but box and make these giant paychecks at this point? Especially if he's representing your promotion. So from the MMA side of things, I know he's not fighting MMA right now. We knew he'd probably

get a big boxing match. But if he goes up there and beats Anthony Joshua in a boxing match after You're taking Tyson Fury to the limit. I mean, what does this mean for his MMA career? And if you're Don Davis, what are you thinking right now? Is there a little bit of butterflies in your stomach on both ways, like positive and negative almost? I mean, if I'm Don Davis, first of all, I'm feeling a little co-leaderie right now. This feels very co-leaderie. I'm real into it.

But, man, I'm ecstatic, right? Like this, you, this, France, if you're Don Davis, this Francis thing could really have not gone better for you, than it has so far because again 10 months ago Francis Inganu's price would not be Francis and Gano's price today it's that old saying right yesterday's price is not today's price if Francis goes out and wins like Don Davis should be the first person there celebrating his corner because you're right eventually however long this lasts eventually Francis will come in fighting the pfl because he's a man of his word he's a man of principal and also ultimately he's an MMA fighter.

He will want to pay it forward to the PFL and to some degree of like, hey, you guys supported me when I was in this moment. That was pretty tough. You guys gave me all, like put all the weight of your organization behind me. I want to pay that back. Absolutely at some point Francis is going to fight in the PFL. But even Dawn, like, Dawn's the first one out here saying, like, I'll be honest, we don't really have a fight for Francis right now.

And so that's the reality, right? Like, this is the best case scenario for the PFL is if Francis goes. out there and puts on an incredible performance again, just like he did against Tyson Fury, so he beats Anthony Joshua. Then all of a sudden, you have the best heavyweight boxer or one of, like a top two, top three heavyweight boxer in the whole sport under contract already for like a much cheaper contract that would have been if you had to do it right now. Like all of this is a win for the PFL. The fact that Francis is even associated with them is a win for the PFL. The fact that Francis throughout the lead up to the last fight and the lead

it to this fight, we'll be talking about the PFL and showing up to PFL events is all a win for the PFL. If you were John Davis, you got to be rooting so hard for this guy to succeed, right? Like, this only makes it better for them. Is co-leadery the word you would use, New York, Rick? I mean, I think my thoughts are long established on the fight for number two, the co-leaderie, all this stuff. It is not. I would never use that. I agree with Shihin to an extent, right? I agree with the idea that like the further Francis Ngano goes here, the more he's able to raise his profile, the more he's able to become a more of a household name, the better it is for the PFL. Because ultimately, eventually, we assume, I don't know for sure, but we assume that he will fight for them.

We assume that he will compete in MMA for the PFL. But I do start to wonder, in the absence of true pay-per-view stars in the sport of MMA, Right. And I don't even just mean this in the terms of what's outside the U.S.C. I'm not even talking about just the co-leader space with the PFLL tour. Even the UFC is kind of searching for true pay-per-view stars at the moment. Francis Inganu is one that I would feel is bankable, right? You know when you're paying for a Francis and Ganu fight, you're going to get a guy who looks like a million bucks on the stage. And when he comes into the cage, he's there to take people's heads off. And when he comes into the boxing ring, quite frankly, he's there to take people's heads off. So he is a pay-per-view. He is somebody that is established in that regard. PFL is going to start putting on paper views and they're not going to have him. And they're not going to have the one guy on their entire roster or girl on their entire roster that I think can actually viably sell.

So as that kind of drags on and as you're putting on these potential paper views, you're now doing it without the one guy who I think actually sells paper views on your entire roster. So as that continues to go on and forever how long this goes, let's say he does beat Anthony Joshua and now he's setting up a Tyson Fury trilogy. or setting up an Ussick fight, how long can PFL wait for him? Is a real legitimate question, I think. When he does eventually fight for PFL, if he does eventually fight for PFL, it will be with an enhanced star power.

It will be, the juice will be worth the squeeze. But there's going to be some tough times ahead while you're waiting for that to happen because they don't have somebody else who's going to be able to sell pay per views for them. I don't know, though. I would push back on that a little bit, right? Because we at this point don't have a sense of what the PFL pays. Paperview Super Fight series, whatever they're calling it, like the schedule for this really is.

Is this going to be something that they do once a year, maybe towards the end of the year? Like, again, the championships type of thing is just something they're trying to run out quarterly for a year. To me, this feels like it's still like it within the realm of possibility that they can hold this off and then do something with Francis, whether it's mid-year, late year. It doesn't have to be crazy, right? Like, it doesn't have to be special, especially if Francis goes out there and looks great against Anthony Joshua. but you're right. Every time he goes out there and performs, you are raising the profile of Francis and Gano.

You were raising the interest in Francis and Gano. You could just book Francis and Gano against whoever at a certain degree. Like if he does well enough, you can just book him against whoever and just the fact that he's there will be helpful to them, whether it's a boxing match. Like, right? This doesn't have to be MMA either if you're the PFL.

Like you could just book Francis against a rando boxer. You could book Francis against a tomato can. It doesn't really matter. We've talked about it a couple times in a couple different shows, but looking back at the career of Crow Crop for the damn they were good of Crow Crop. Like in 2004, Crow Crop fought like nine times in pride. And sure, there were some big ones in there. There were some like, you know, legitimately great fights.

But also there was Dos Caras Jr. And just random dudes who you knew were going to get washed, but they were there to add to the height. They were there to just add to the highlight reel of like, hey, you're just really coming in here to see one of the best performed. I think PFL can get away with doing something. something like that to a certain degree, if Francis becomes that type of star, right? Like, if Francis goes out there and beats Anthony Joshua, and then he's in a holding pattern

where he's waiting for the Fury Usik winner or he's waiting for whatever that next boxing step would be. That's a huge win for the PFL. They could just be like, hey, just come like beat someone up. Just come get a warm up fight in here. Stay hot. Add to your highlight reel. And people will watch, man. People will be interested in it. That's not a bad thing, you know. I'm going to push back against the pushback. The pride business model, Let's just say that was a little different than what PFL is going to try to do. Is it? Is it, though?

I mean, Yakuza money and Saudi money. I don't know if there's a huge difference there. I think there's an intention for this to be a viable business. I mean, maybe it's wrong, but I think there's an intention, at least in the U.S. to be a viable business. And they're going to do a pay-per-view sometime in the first half of the year. There's going to be a pay-per-view, and it's not going to have Francis Ngano on it. So yeah, we'll see how that does, but I do think this Francis Angano boxing run could go long, right? This could take a while to resolve itself.

And I don't think that that's in the best interest of the PFL for a certain amount of time. Certainly when they do get him, I agree. Like getting in the front of these fans is going to be big. And if he continues to win, even bigger. But he's not theirs right now. You know, he's there as a name alone. Like, PFL got no shine on the Tyson Fury broadcast. There was no mention of PFL.

PFL got no notoriety from it. There was nothing value added for the PFL brand other than when they get Francis. Now, Francis is enhanced. But again, Francis is the property here, not PFL. And so, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a conundrum on the PFL side. But ultimately, like, they've sold, they've sold themselves. and they sold Francis on this idea of like, you're going to get to do what you want. You control your destiny.

We're going to let you box. And boy did he. Boy did he go out and box. And now he's going to continue to do that. So it's interesting times ahead. I'm curious to see how this plays out. If Don Davis and company is not on the phone with the man who makes decisions over there, if this does happen March 9th, which by the way, if that's the case, it's the same day as UFC 299.

It's going to be a long, long day. If I'm Don Davis and company, I am attaching myself to this event as much as possible. I am doing our first pay-per-view of the year the night before in Saudi Arabia. And I am attaching myself to this as much as possible to try to take as much shine off of the UFC as I possibly can. Because they had basically said, hey, look, two of the big months we want to do pay-per-views are March and December. So we do it right before the season starts.

We do all the big fights. You get the Bellator PFL silliness out of the time. of the way, which could be fun, but I think we know how that's all going to play out. Do a big pay-per-view the night before, then do the Francis fight, and then the tired folk are going to have to watch the UFC event after that. But before that, it's just a whole, you basically have just stomached an entire PFL weekend and slash fight week because you've attached yourself to the Francis brand during this build to the Joshua fight. So let's see how they handle that part of it. I agree with both of you.

Sheen, your take on you bought Francis at a super low spot compared to where he's at now is absolutely perfect. And Rick, I think you're right. I think the appetite for Francis to fight an MMA is going to go from, we have to see this to from a fan's perspective, perhaps a little bit frustrating, which could lead to a little frustration from the PFL. But man, it's damn good to be in the Francis and Gano business right now. Eric Nixig is probably loving life right now, getting ready.

Just think about what this guy has had to prepare for for the last year. He's had to prepare for John Jones, which didn't happen, Tyson Fury, Israel, Adasania. Now he's preparing Sean Strickland to fight Drickus Duplice. And now he's about to get ready to get Francis and Ghana ready to fight Anthony Freakin' Joshua. This is unbelievable. This is absolutely insane. It really is. It's so insane.

Coach of the year, baby. I mean, he was easily coach of the year. And he might be coach of the year again. Who knows how this plays out? But I do want to say adding to your point that you just sort of built out, because I think you're right. The pay-per-view aspect of this for PFL is actually not even something that, like, I know we just talked about it, but it's, I don't even think it's something that matters until the end of the year, right? Because this first PFL pay-per-view doesn't even really need Francis, to be honest, that can be the whole gimmick of the PFL versus Bellator. Maybe you get Kayla versus Cyborg headlining.

Like, it's not going to do a million pay-per-view buys, but no pay-per-view from the PFL would ever do a million paper-view buys, right? Like that, if that's the get in the door, pay-per-view of this supervised series where you have a cool gimmick, promotion against promotion, and you have a marquee fight, which Cyborg versus Kayla is, and hey, if you throw it the same week as UFC 229 and you really,

or 299 and you really, really want to get confrontational with it, like that in and of itself is a story, I don't know, man. There's a lot here to work with, even without having to throw Francis on it, right? I'm going to, I'm going to zag on trying to do a paper,

a PFL pay-view in the same weekend as a UFC paperview and a boxing. I'm going to zag and say you should absolutely stay as far as humanly possible away from people spending money on boxing paper views and USC paper views because what you don't want is to have that number come back as 5,000 and these unsubstantiated reports of what the paper view did and it be an absolute dud. So I think you should try and stay as far as possible away from those and promote the hell out of it and see what you can do. But here's the thing too.

Here's the thing, March wide open, right? We got March 9th is UFC 299. And then after that, there's like two weeks in a row and nothing. So if you really wanted to do March, I agree with you, Eric. Like I'm not selfishly workwise. I'm really not trying to kill myself that week and cover two giant, three giant events in a span of two days. If you do it the next week or the week after, like you still got the whole runway of the week to dominate that whole week, right? Well, there's going to be a lot to look forward to in March, maybe March 9th, maybe it'll be March 16th, maybe it'll be March 23rd, who the hell knows at this point?

But there is going to be a press conference, I believe, within the next couple of weeks to officially announce the date. People I've spoken to are hoping that it's March 9th, but it's not official as of yet from what I've been told. But, man, Francis Ngano doing the damn thing, getting himself another massive fight in the boxing ring. it's Anthony Joshua and, man, like I've said a million other times, if I get a bag, I want to fumble it just like Francis did because I fumbled a very light, a medium weight bag into a giant heavy bag that I'm going to go ahead and take to the bank. Maybe it's two bags at this point. So let us all strive to fumble the bag just like Francis and Ghanes Shaheed. Real quick before we go, early predictions from you guys, because the

timing of this is so interested in me, right? Like, Anthony Joshua right now looks better than he has. Stock up 100%. Since all of it, yeah, since all of the stuff happened with Ruiz.

Like, Anthony Joshua looks the best he has and the stock is in the best spot that it has been for years. He looked like a killer last time out. He looks like a controlled killer. Is this Francis's fight to win? Or is this, is Francis, like, he's going to be the underdog, again, obviously.

but I don't think he's going to be a big underdog. And I'm very, very curious to see where both boxing fans and MMA fans lie. Because I think MMA fans are all going to assume this is the Anthony Joshua of like 18 months ago and just be like, oh, Francis wins in a wash. This is really, really competitive in my eyes. Yeah, I mean, I was about to just give this whole. I am going to give a breakdown, but it's going to sound as stupid in hindsight when he

goes out there and flatlines Anthony Joshua and does what he did to Tyson. Fury. The problems that I see with this matchup for Francis Inganu is one, like the Inganu Fury fight was epic and awesome. The problem with it was very low volume. There were not a lot of punches thrown by either man in both sides of it. He's going to be against a guy in Anthony Joshua, who I've been very critical of and did not think look good over the last two years, but since pairing with Ben Davidson and especially in his most recent performance against Otto Valin, looked really, really sharp. And I think he's going to have a volume problem. I think Anthony Joshua is going to be really content to sit behind his jab, jab the body, jab the head. And he's going to have trouble

getting inside in a way that he didn't against Tyson Fury because both of them were really just so low volume. But when Tyson was jabbing, that's when Francis was losing that fight. And he was just on the outside and he really didn't have many tools to get on the inside. I have a feeling that Anthony Joshua would be pretty comfortable in a fight like that where he's just poking the stick out, poking the stick out and really keeping Francis Ngano away. And with Ben Davidson in his corner, I really thought he looked fantastic in the last fight. And I've been ready to kind of bury Anthony Joshua because he hasn't lived up to the potential that I think a lot of people had for him.

This is that performance. If he's able to get this one done and really keep Francis de Gano on the outside with the jab, I think he's going to look pretty stellar and it's going to set up a big fight with Tyson Fury. That said, Francis Ngano is probably just going to walk in there and nuke him. and I'm going to look like an idiot just like you made everybody look like an idiot against Tyson Fury. So we'll see. But stylistically, I do think this is tough.

And this is why it's so freaking dope because Francis is a gun and is just like, I don't give a shit. F, I'm going to fight the two guys that, like, these guys don't have a ton of common opponents. Otto Valene notably just became a common opponent for both of these guys. These guys don't have a lot of common opponents because people just really don't in heavyweight boxing fight all the best guys. It's just not a thing. Like, it just does not happen. Wilder fight versus Joshua has been bandied about for forever and just never happened.

He's going to have these two as common opponents immediately, which is badass and Francis Agano deserves all the praise he's going to get for this, doing this and injecting some real life into heavyweight boxing. I'm very excited about this, but I do at the moment, just like my brain is telling me Anthony Joshua and my heart is telling me like Francis goes out and nukes him. So let's see what happens. That's where I'm at. My brain is like, dude, this is Anthony Joshua's fight,

but then it's also like, what the hell did I just watch against Tyson Fury, right? I have no idea. My brain was wrong last time, so. Yeah. Remember what we talked about on the preview show for Ingano Fury? We're like, if we can get to the fifth round, like, that's a win in itself, right? Now we're like, could this guy win? And what if he wins and all of this?

Like, it's a whole different conversation. We were talking about Anthony Joshua. When Ingano was getting ready to fight Fury, we were like, after Joshua fought Robert Hellenius, we were like, I think Francis could beat Anthony Joshua. Like we were all saying that, like, we think Francis could beat him. And we're all saying that after the Fury fight. We're like, dude, Francis would just destroy Anthony Joshua.

And then he has the auto fight and looks great. This is just so good. This is just so good. I ain't doubt in Francis anymore. I don't know if he goes out there and nukes him. But I can tell you what, he's going to go out there. He's going to be competitive. And he's going to have moments win or lose.

So I am fascinated by all this. I'm stunned by all of this, and I think the best thing to really say about all of this is congratulations to Francis and Gano doing the damn thing. Congratulations to Markell Martin, Eric Nixon, the whole crew over there, just doing the damn thing. And this is just unbelievable stuff. I think that's the main word of all of this. So stick with us at M.AFighting.com. We'll let you know the date.

All the particulars when it comes to this, Francis and Gano versus Anthony Joshua fight, a battle of ranked heavyweights in the world of professional boxing, which is even more important to note. Francis Gano is going to have a number next to his name as he makes a walk to the squirt circle for the second time. So stick with us. I may finally say, for Eric,

for Sean. I am Mike Hack. Thank you for listening. Stick with us. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Okay. Only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line.

But first, ah, there. The last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. Hi, I'm Sophia Lopra Carol, host of the Before the Chorus podcast. We dive into the life experiences behind the music we love. Artists of all genres are welcome. And I've been joined by some pretty amazing folks, like glass animals.

I guess that was the idea, was to try something personal and see what happened. And Japanese breakfast. I thought that the most surprising thing I could offer was an album about joy. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, and remember, so much happens before the chorus.