MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Francis Ngannou Resume Review | UFC 270: Ngannou-Gane

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

The Resume Review is BACK with a special guest! Luke, Brian and Chuck Mindenhall break down Francis Ngannou's UFC run leading up to his UFC 270 bout with Ciryl Gane. What were the biggest wins of his career? When did the guys know Francis could be champion? The boys break it all down here. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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On 2-22-22, on 2 22 22 two of the best heavyweights are gonna fight to see who's number one and the three of us are gonna talk about it hey like my dad jokes this is the resume review of francis and gana who we're really here to talk about that is brian campbell my co-host of course at morning combat cbs sports he's a showtime commentator don't forget that either it's the honorary brother here to talk about. That is Brian Campbell, my co-host, of course, at Morning Combat, CBS Sports. He's a Showtime commentator. Don't forget that either. It's the honorary brother, the man in the hat, Chuck Mendenhall is here. Hi, Chuck. How are you? Good, good. Chuck, one word to describe our new set while I'm going to sit here and gloat. Awesome. Okay, thank you. Yeah, that's right. That's a good word. We needed an expert on Predators, so that's why we brought in Chuck. This is really cool. That's right. We need an expert on predators. We have him here.

So we're here to discuss Francis Ngannou as BC. This is technically a title unification. Do you care about the unification aspect at all? You know, it makes the marquee look shinier, but we all know the real deal of why it's there, just because Francis couldn't fight a month earlier in UFC play and business hijinks behind the scenes. But obviously what's lingering over this fight is it's a great fight. Cyril Gans, the unbeaten interim champion, can he make that leap? But also this could be Francis' last UFC fight for all we know

based on his current contract situation, which win or lose, that could play a part in which direction he goes. So it's an interesting time for Francis, who's really figuring out right now from that title-winning bout last year against Stipe Miocic in the rematch how great he can be. We're going to look back at the build, the rise to get to that point. Before we get into anything specific, though, you may have heard, Chuck. You may have been briefed.

Oh, God, are you doing an awards thing and you wanted to react to it? No. Okay, all right. Let's hear it. There's something called the resume review curse. Oh, yes, I have may not have been broken. I have heard of it. Which, by the way, it's not real.

And if it wasn't, it was proven. So just to keep you updated, Canelo Alvarez broke the curse. OK. But people say, no, no, no. That's boxing. No, brah. This is MMA only. Yes, they moved the goalpost after.

8-0. I believe it's 8-0 with seven stoppage wins the curse right now. Do you put any stock that we could somehow cosmically be altering the outcome of UFC 277? Of course I do, man. I live in superstition. I think that if that's what the record says, that's what it is. You know, I did not know about this curse until just last night.

People take it very seriously, yeah. They take it very seriously. So I hope, for Francis' sake, that we're not putting a curse on him. We probably, well, I don't think we are putting a curse on him. Well, someone needs to get cursed by it. So even if Francis wins, you could be the one. Okay. Before we get started with the actual look at Francis's resume, Chuck, you're here. Let me ask you very quickly. You have covered every, we've all covered every single fight, at least from the UFC on, of Francis's

career. What can we say about it to this point? Well, I mean, to me, he's the kind of quintessential heavyweight, right? Like, you look at him, he screams heavyweight. I think he's one of those guys, boxing has had these guys over the years. UFC has not had a guy like that, other than maybe Brock Lesnar back in his day, where it's just a specimen to behold. The first time I ever saw him, actually, was in his first UFC fight in Orlando. No idea what he looked like. He was on an elevator and I thought he was a football player or something attending the fight. Like he was huge.

I didn't even think he was a 265 because he looked that big. And then when I realized that this is the new guy who they're calling Francis, um, Gano at the time, it was a Gano nipples that Adesanya used to have apparently. I've been told, I don't know. Yeah. So, like, you know. But getting the first look at him, it was just. You're unbelievable. It's so quick, right? It's so in the moment. Quick is not the word I was thinking of.

No, you make a good point. If there's somebody who's going to be the baddest man on the planet, he looks the part. To your point, he makes his debut in 2015, December, actually, 2015, against Luis Henrique, B.C. And to the point you're raising here, one of the things I noticed immediately in this fight, we had never seen Francis before, unless you were, of course, part of the French MMA scene.

So this is our first look at him. And I just noticed his opponent, Luis Henrique, was big, but a guy like Francis was cut. He was muscular. He doesn't look, to your point, Brock Lesnar, a difference. But we're used to the Tai Tui Vasas, the Mark Hunts, the Derek Lewis's. And God bless him. We love him, BC.

But Francis looks different. He's built like a brick shithouse. He looks like an action hero or villain, depending on your side. And even Joe Rogan, you know, in the buildup to this fight, is just freaking out. Like, this is a huge man. And Dominic Cruz, during the prep point area, going, you know, that 83-inch reach. His arms go below his knees while standing still. He can scratch them.

You know, obviously this is one of those guys where you see him like, damn, I hope he can fight. Without bending over. Dana White's famous comments on Conor McGregor after hearing him talk, damn, I hope he can, yeah, he can fight. I was taken aback in this first fight. And by the way, they're both making their UFC debut, him and Henrique. Francis is 5-1 coming in and suffered a loss early, early in his career.

But he's way more poised and patient in this fight, and really his entire UFC run, than I think sometimes your brain allows you to remember. He's never really been reckless, go out there and try to finish you. It's more on counter-strikes. Well, I disagree with that a little bit, but in this fight. Really, in a lot of these early fights, it's more about counter-strikes and reacting to what the opponent does to him.

So he was much more of a finish project. And this is a repeating theme, Chuck, in this, when we do this, because sometimes narratives change, you know, we reinterpret things wrong. I think he was a lot closer to being freaking great than I remembered early on. What did you remember about his UFC debut? I thought he was just really susceptible to takedowns because in that very first fight he was taken down in fact if the referee for that first fight wasn't like a little bit short triggered on standing them up he may have stayed there for the whole first round and then the second round so looking back on I just I do remember the fight because he was a specimen of a hold but I do remember him getting taken down

and then in the second fight also the same thing so I thought that that would be the recurring theme early on in his career, and obviously he's got that somewhat corrected. There's a moment. This is why I should listen to the fights on mute. It's Henrique. Yeah, I listen to the fights on mute. That's the problem there.

You get the names wrong when you do that. It's a smart way to go, though. So in the interest of correction, Henrique, I listened to the fight on mute to rewatch for the fight today or the show today. There is a moment there where he gets hit with a punch right before it's over and you can see his eyes go like this. At the same time, they begin to do the wishy-washy bit.

So he had this moment where he was hurt from the punch, but also not so hurt that he couldn't process, oh my God, this guy hits with volcanic power. So I think it's before that. Did you see the leg kick that Francis opened his offense with? He just came out with a typical outside leg strike. And I saw the oh before that. Did you see the leg kick that Francis opened his offense with? He just came out with a typical outside leg strike.

And I thought, I saw the oh shit from Henrique in that same moment. Like, what the F is this guy made of? Like, holy crap. So his reach, by the way,

was a nine inch advantage over this guy coming in. And you can see that in there. I mean, if you're, and you got a guy that's quick, powerful, and patient with that natural

built-in reach, I feel like, again, like we should have saw some of this level coming. And re-watching that, you see him come out, you see Henrik come out with his glasses on, and he's smiling, and you're thinking,

this guy has no idea. He has no fucking idea. From this perch of six years later or whatever it is, you look back and you're like, this guy just has no idea. I don't know what tape he was watching or what he was expecting. I don't think he's in the UFC anymore either. No, he had gone two and three after this, even though he moved on to light heavyweight,

but lost to Ryan Spann, and then he was gone. I wish we had a picture. Do you remember the scene where it's, where I'm Francis, you're Rogan, and you're Ferdinand Lopez, and he's trying to translate, and dude, motherfucking Francis is towering over Rogan. He's like up to here on him.

I mean, to be fair, though, we would too. So I've been behind Francis. Francis, I think, is a little bit taller than me. He's certainly much more muscular and bigger. He just has a giant frame. But it was weird watching him. I think with one hand, he could have just swallowed Joe and picked him up. He's a giant man. Okay, we move on

to what... Well, he knocks him out with a perfect left hook uppercut counter. And it's a holy shit this guy can crack. But I say in hindsight maybe we should have seen some more of the potential. I remember watching

this fight live. I don't remember going oh shit, we have a new title. The problem is the first fight of the night by the way. Just like Derek Lewis

and Orlando, both guys debuted on the very first fight of like a fight night. And also, what you saw in this you could later pick out and be like

oh right, he could do this with it. But if you just see this fight, yes, Francis does look different, physically looks different, but it doesn't look all that different as a fight from what you normally see among heavyweights. To be fair, there's a lot of shitty heavyweights at this lower card level. 100%. So it was a great debut, actually, but it didn't necessarily foretell

all that we saw. So we jump now to 2016. That was his only UFC fight. Of course, it took place in December of that year. So we're now in April now of the new year in 2016. And he takes on Curtis Blades. Curtis Blades, a great wrestler out of Elevation Fight Team out in Denver, Colorado. This was on the Rothwell versus Dos Santos card.

Also, I want to point out for a guy like Francis, his first fight in the UFC is in Orlando. His second one is in Zagreb. Early on, they made this guy a bit of a road warrior, making him constantly go to important markets for them, and he did it. So I want to just point that out. A couple key points here about Blades' stock coming in. Blades was a minus 155 betting favorite,

which was the last time during this early run that Francis would be the underdog. And it's because he had just TKO'd over him and took a decision from a still there Mark Hunt before that. So Blades despite being early in his UFC career kind of came into this fight as he could be the next guy if he puts together some wins. I'm not going to lie and say that I was paying attention to the fight like we're doing right now but at the time I know when the fight came on it was the same thing.

Blades knew how to wrestle and I think that the recipe was obviously that he could just take him down and keep him there right? And he's 6'4 with good reach himself. So this was a great early test for Francis against a guy who seemed ready to go places. What did you make of the idea since you did not think his wrestling was all that impressive in the debut? And fair enough, it wasn't necessarily all that spectacular. But here he takes on a guy like Blades who is maybe the best in the division at it actually. Stipe certainly has an argument for it as well. Right.

And yes, okay, according to Fightmetric, he got two of the six takedowns, but they never seemed to matter that much, did they? No. I just know that, because I always gauge these things by buddies on fight nights that are like, hey, man, who should we take? And I remember pointing this out.

I was like, you know, I just saw Ngannou fight in the last one, and he was taken down. I just envisioned him getting taken down, and the fight's going to go that direction. So him thwarting a couple of those early on, I thought was a tell a little bit. The other thing is, you know, he's from France. He's training out of France, and a lot of times these European guys,

especially raw guys who've only been out at two or three years, they just don't have wrestling yet. You just don't believe that they're going to be able to stop a guy like Blades who has a dedicated past to wrestling. The other part, though, I will say, when he got up at times, and this is true in the Henrique fight as well, he didn't have the

best takedown defense, but he was so fucking strong. And even in the first Stipe fight, you can see it. He just stands up at times. And these guys are like, they don't know what to do with him. He didn't take damage at all being on the ground against Henrique or Blades. And I think Henrique was afraid to open up offensively, even in top position, because he had felt that power.

But did you see what's interesting in this one? Blades, I mentioned, was the first guy with size equality for the most part. That first opening jab from Blades, I think it fucking trances up. He was like, oh shit, he was hurt. He took a step back. But the narrative on this fight tell me if i'm wrong and i think it was a narrative that was built up heading into the blades rematch which we can talk about later but was oh okay blades ends up losing this fight by tko because

of his face was a mess but oh man he was the first guy to expose that francis and he was dominating there was a lot of that looking back on this fight yes blades had two or three successful takedowns there he did nothing with it correct yeah correct it's been a problem that has plagued curtis blades i would say in his ufc run not in totality obviously he has those vicious elbows over oveream so it's not a consistent problem but it's something that he has ever i think fully worked through and this is what i mean a guy like francis sort of just picking his spots as a heavyweight. He was showing good perseverance, not through terrible spots, but just sort of picking his own.

You like what you see here a little bit from Francis, right? I did like what I was seeing, but at the same time, again, I'm not sure that I was circling him as anything to really be a champion. So let me say something here, and I think it's important the audience should know this. What is the context here of the heavyweight division? We are now pretty close to the end, the beginning of the post-Cain, post-JDS heavyweight division where you do have a lot of older players in that division because it's heavyweight. You're always going to have older players who have been there for a while,

like your Olovskis and things like that. But there's this power vacuum at the top where we actually don't know who the best heavyweight is so this win by the way i know it's like a tko ref stoppage because the doctor right checked it twice the referee actually is like ugly man the referee is like come on doc get him out of here the doc's like uh this motherfucker can't see shit and they actually had to stop so he was like here touch my finger to cover in the face and the ref was like all right this touch my finger. He covered Blades' good eye. Blades smacked him in the face. And the ref was like, all right, this is fucking over.

This is a fucking joke. So my point being is, at this time, we didn't know exactly who Curtis Blades was either. To be fair on your question about the era, this is now Stipe's time. But it took a long time for a lot of us, including me. I'm the leader of this anti-fan club to be like, no, Stipe's legit.

He's going to be lording over this division for a while. To me, it felt like an empty crown on top, obviously, with Kane handing it off, and we still weren't sure if Kane was going to come back. We all thought Overeem was going to be that guy. He just had a couple rough losses during that stretch. One of them to Blades, you know, obviously to Travis Brown and to Bigfoot, where you're just sort of like, damn, he can't put it together. So it was open there for Ngannou, but the UFC announcers, nor us at the time,

were still thinking, God, this guy could be next. I will say two things, though. Francis Efteron with the southpaw stance for the first time in this fight didn't really have any success, but seems comfortable early doing it. And also, Blades was the first guy to be able to take his power.

He couldn't take his power for more than two rounds, but a guy with a big chin, and you saw the freaking damage that comes to you at this point if you try to take Francis Francis' power because Blades' face was a freaking... It was shut. I mean, it was bleeding from the nose down and the eye. The eye was completely closed.

So if you take that shit, you're going to get a. All right, so we move along. We stay in 2016. He had a busy 2016. Three fights. We now move to Chicago, Illinois. This is July of 2016. At the Holm versus Shevchenko card,

which is actually a really good card, did quite well on Fox for the ratings, I recall. This is not a big fight in his repertoire. This was something of a next fight in the contract kind of scenario. He beats Bojan Mihailovic, whose tattoos

were not great. He didn't look like he had been in the weight room at any point in his life. And I'm sure he's a good fighter. He had been unbeaten for a decade in the sub-UFC level. He had a 10-fight win streak coming into here. But he was small for a heavyweight. And from the opening second of this fight, you got Bohan circling away trying to see if that fence can open.

Because he's just trying to get the frick away from him. But seriously, but I will say, before this fight, first time Francis says in the pre-fight interview, I will be the heavyweight champion one day. I thought that was a key turning point moment. Even though he's still got the predator haircut and they're still mispronouncing his name calling him Gano, this was the first time where he's out there saying it. And he's on the main card. He's on the main card of the UFC on Fox card.

Big deal. All right, so what do you want to say? I mean, there's nothing really to say about this one. Once Bojan let him open up, he was out of there. But you can see the UFC is like, okay, we saw what you did against Curtis Blades. We saw what you did against Luis Henrique. Let's see what else you can do against an overmatched opposition, but on a grand stage. Let's be fair about the stoppage, though.

I don't know if you guys rewatched the replays. He didn't actually catch Bojan. No, he just kind of decided he wanted out. This was almost like a fear. I'm going to go to the ground. This was close to bobsap territory. And then he got hammered to the face so clean that Herb's like, dude, you're not even fighting back. You're done.

Herb Dean got him out of there, even though he had not been concussed by any means. So now he's on a big stage. He beats this guy. And even though the fight kind of sucked for the reasons that we saw, it begins to set up this myth. You've got the power from the Henrique fight with the uppercut. Now you've got the highlight reel. You've got Blades' eye being completely closed.

And now you've got a guy who wants zero part of him on a UFC on Fox card. That's a big win for this dude if he could have got it. He didn't even fucking try. These are all newbies, by the way, right? Every single guy to this point had been a UFC debutant. They weren't like... In fairness, Curtis Blades is a pretty old contender, but at the time, you're right.

Yes, that's what he was. All right, this fight is actually kind of interesting. It's another smaller one. December of 2016, this is his last fight of the year. He takes on Anthony Hamilton. Now, Anthony Hamilton is a bigger guy at the time. I'm not sure where he is now. At the time, he was out of the Greg Jackson's camp.

And the reason why he was a relevant opponent for Francis at this point was overall he was not nearly as good. But he could do one thing that was important, he could wrestle. So the question was, if a guy puts wrestling pressure, is Francis going to fight down to this opposition and show us that he's got this really bad weakness, or can he overcome it? Turns out he can overcome it. And Hamilton could crack. He was fresh off a 14-second knockout win in the octagon.

So this was sort of like, oh, two power punchers go against each other. And Hamilton, you said, where is he now? God, this was the beginning of a four-fight losing streak that ended his UFC run. So that can happen when you run into Francis. He's got a seven-inch reach advantage, which is becoming a theme in each fight. But here's where John Anik enters the picture. First fight, Anik calls it. We know Anik's commitment to pronunciation and facts and getting things right, doing

his homework. This is the first fight in which we are calling him Francis Ngannou. Wait a minute. Didn't he call him that in Croatia? I thought that that was the first one. No, it was Goldie and it was other announcers. He's still Gano the whole way. They go with Ngannou and also Anik calling him, quote, a rising star who is seen by many

to be the future of the division. So the hype is there. Yeah. slugger versus slugger. But, Luke, this size difference, if you don't have one, in Stipe's case, the first one to beat Francis in the UFC, two or three, four elite skills to bring in there against him, you can't hang with him at this point. You just can't do it. And, again, I want to point out, Anthony Hamilton takes a couple of punches. Not a couple. He's a tough guy.

But he takes some punches from a guy like Francis and his defense goes to shit as well where Francis can just pick up the arm and then drive it across for the Kimura. It's ridiculous what kind of... That was a display of strength. Yeah, mental strength. We grew up in the 80s when guys would show up

to fight Tyson fucking pissing in their pants. You get a little bit of that with Francis if not so much at the beginning. Certainly several punches in from him, if they're still awake, they're like, this is, no, no, we're not doing this. I think this is his breakthrough win. You said it's sort of another... I think so, too.

No, no, it's an important win because here was a guy who was supposed to really be like, okay, he's not the best fighter, but he could test him in this area, and Francis ran over him. I mean, he dominated him, and for them to build him up coming in as a star, it's the first time he's got the new haircut with the designs in the side. They're saying his name right. He's number 12 in the division.

Co-main event. Co-main event on the score. He was also a minus 500 betting favorite. So you start to see Vegas, who's typically ahead of the curve on identifying who's going to be a guy who can go on that type of run. And they nailed it. And afterwards, Brian Stan, a commentary, yelling, four years ago, this dude didn't even know what MMA was. So we are all, I think, journalists, fans, announcers,

are waking up at the same time to this isn't just a banger. This is a legitimate, if this guy keeps doing this to everyone, no one's going to stop him. And I think at that time, he may have been 28 or 29 at that time. He made his UFC debut at 29 in 2015. So he was just 30, which for heavyweight is like 15 years old. But just to peel or to pry that arm loose and to do that, it was almost Big Brother-ing like.

You know what I mean? That's why it opened my eyes. That's when I was really like, OK, his strength is just something else. It's showing in different ways now. To get that commercial. But him getting a sub is like the equivalent of like, somebody learned to pop, right? It's just like, you know, it's like, yes. You know, what's funny is Joe Silva one time had a quote about Frank Mir and his submissions,

and it was, Frank Mir is what happens when horsepower meets technique. Yeah. And that's what happened in this one, where actually Francis showed some really good technique, but his fucking horsepower is just extraordinary, and Hamilton tapped immediately. Francis calling out Arlovsky or Travis Brown. The point is he wants a top-ten guy, and he wants it now. So then we move along. He takes on Andrei Arlovsky.

UFC on Fox. Look where they're putting him. This is big time. They're putting him. Shevchenko versus Peña. They're putting him with Shevchenko, who, by the way, herself during this time is building a nice little run. He wins this one against Andrei Arlovsky like it's a fucking joke.

And he does it. Hold on, hold on. Let me just set it up. One second, one second, one second. 132 of the first round, January of 2017. Go ahead. Orlovsky's on a three-fight winning streak. I think they rightfully sold it.

Sorry, three-fight losing streak. They rightfully sold it as Joe Rogan know, maybe the best sort of prototypical crossroads fight that we've seen. I know Orlovsky's had a lot of reinventions, but this was a time three straight knockout losses that were sort of like, he- Fair enough, fair enough. But at the time, you could see it on the screen, when this fight was made, granted, we'll take that as it's worth, Chuck, Orlovsky was ranked seven.

Orlovsky was ranked seven. Arlovsky was ranked seven. But Francis was sent, right? So I don't know where he was ranked before that, but he was put number seven. So if you're a guy, I mean, this is the bigger part for Francis. Now you are at the end of the division where one, Arlovsky is a former champion. So you're fighting former champions. Two, you're fighting names. And three, you're doing it against the old guard of

the division. This is what Jon Jones had to do when he went through light heavyweight. There are obviously some important differences, but you see these big transcendental guys have to make these pushes. This is the beginning of the meaty side of the push. This was the baton pass because you have, no matter how many fights he'd lost in a row, you still have images of Arlovsky in his heyday. You have images of Arlovsky beating other guys, knocking them out. To see him get knocked out by Ngannou was... Well, it was the first time they touched, to be fair. Arlovsky had a lot of leg strikes to open the fight.

The first time they both dug in to punch, Arlovsky missed the right hand that caught him in the chin, and it was two-punch combo. The fight's freaking over. By the way, his uppercut lifts Arlovsky into orbit like this. So this is where the whole idea that we may have MMA's Mike Tyson. I think it's... The sub-win before this against Hamilton was sort of a breakthrough, oh, shit, you got to take legitimate notice.

But this was the, maybe he can knock out anybody with this first punch, even if he's not skilled, even if he can't wrestle, even if he doesn't have gas tank, it may not be a matchup. Is he dog-eared at this point as a champion in your mind? When he beats Arlovsky, do you think this guy's the future champion? I think he's going to contend for a title. The weird thing is, in the revisionist

way, you look now and you're like, were we already thinking, okay, he's had a lot of quick fights. What happens if he just goes into the deeper water? That's fair, yes. We've often said, if you see a guy come off the regional scene and he's got a 7-0 resume and all our first-round TKOs, you know he's a hammer.

The problem is he hasn't fought other hammers yet, and so you just don't know what's going to happen. But this is that rare hammer where, like I just said, you start to debate to yourself, all of these holes in this game may not matter. We may not get to the point where we find out if somebody can expose those. That's scary.

Even Anik afterwards, who's typically not high up on the hyperbole and too far in that level, was like, we may be looking at the next heavyweight champion. I also want to point out something about this fight. And folks who may not remember this, go back and watch. This fight ends almost the same way as the JDS fight. Both JDS and Orlovsky, I went back and I saw this on the tape yesterday. It's kind of funny. They're so

far away from Francis that they want to hit him with something and like not be close and they want to get the fuck out, but they make bad choices to get to that. Here's what I mean. Go back and watch. Orlovsky and JDS whiff on right hands, but they're throwing them from so far away with such steam

that they step and now they're leaning over themselves and their weight carries them forward so far away with such steam that they step, and now they're leaning over themselves, and their weight carries them forward, so they go past Francis. So Francis just goes, bop, to someone with his back turned, and fucking drills him. Go back and look at this. It's the exact same punch. Arlovsky whiffs.

There is one hand that kind of clips the top of him, and it's the one on the backside where they're bending into where he fucking drills him, and he hits JDS with the exact same one. These guys were frightened of making contact with him. Arlovsky was actually number five coming in. Ngannou was number 10. First fight for Ngannou with the frosted tips. You sure he's five? Seven on the screen.

Five and 10. But we can go back and watch the video. I've been wrong at least once before. We'll see what happens. But the next one with Overeem, which was... Wait, wait. Before you get to the over and now in between I think is where his lore starts to really come in. So last two of these performance bonuses Yeah, so he comes in before Overeem, right? This is a big fight big power guys

they both looked the part but this is right when he goes to the To the performance Institute and he does that power thing right and he breaks Tyron spawns Record remember for the heaviest puncher? This was like a big deal. The myth is being built. This is what I'm saying. Everybody was talking about this, and the viral footage of that. So heading into that, suddenly, we're looking at his punching power as like something otherworldly.

And you're first getting a taste of like the homeless backstory, the hunger, all of this stuff. You're not getting the full details, but you're starting to get, there's like a mythic superhero build there. All right. So now we move on to the next one. And this is, you just don't punch a lot of number one contender tickets quite like this. In fact, I would argue, and I think it's pretty true, in terms of uppercut finishes in MMA, this is your number one, any weight class, any era. I don't know what could be better. Francis Ngannou, at the co-main event of UFC 218, this is Holloway versus Aldo 2,

is in the co-main event against Alistair Overeem. We are in a place called Detroit, Michigan, and he takes his motherfucking head off. It's the greatest knockout in MMA history. Tell me it's not. Please tell me it's not. If it's not, you would agree, merely as an uppercut KO, that's the best uppercut KO. You can argue that other knockouts have meant more in title fights, but just brutality and

violence against an elite foe. I don't think I've ever seen someone's head whip over their shoulders the way this is. Just to double down on where Overeem was, this is number four Ngannou against number one Overeem. Overeem had won two in a row, but six of seven overall, with the only loss being the title loss at 203 to Stipe. And by the way, Stipe may have tapped. So you get what I'm saying here.

Overeem's coming in as like... Dude, he'll do this. No, but that's the point. I'll be like, dude, JFK's a liar. But anyway... The point is, he could... I mean, Overeem said, again, like Arlovsky, a couple of peaks and valleys, but the stock was so high.

If Ngannou really is MMA's Mike Tyson, if he really is a superhero or the villain at the end of the video game, okay, prove it now against this guy. This ain't washed Arlovsky, this ain't fat white guy with Nazi tattoos. This is over. This is the former K-1 dream strike force simultaneous champion. This is the best heavyweight in the world who's not the current champion at this time, which was Stipe Nijic. That is over. This is the former K-1 Dream Strikeforce simultaneous champion. This is the best heavyweight in the world who's not the current champion at this time, which was Stipe Nijicic. And he fucking sent him into the land of the ghost.

You watch movies in Hollywood where they choreograph an uppercut where the dude goes back, his head goes back, and he goes back. That's what it looked like. It looked like it was a choreographed cinematic thing. How many times is a guy get KO'd and you, and I don't mean like, oh, you wrote it on Twitter.

I mean like in your head, you were like, I don't, dude's not okay. I was going to say, that's not a career altering or ending. That's like a life ending KO. I know. When he hit him that way, I was so worried about Overeem. Especially when they kept showing it. And somebody captured a brilliant like photo where you just see his head straight back as it's going through his face.

And we haven't talked about this, too. Dude, Overeem, before this fight, had called news of Francis' power fake news. Yeah, that's right. And told him he was going to show him that the skills matter. And to be clear, yes, Overeem is a better overall kickboxer. That is true.

But, dude, when you've got the off switch that a guy like Francis does, I don't give a shit what your skills are. They just don't really matter in those contests. And also, for as short as this fight was, Francis stuffed an opening takedown from Overeem, and once Overeem was able to get into a standing clinch, Francis locked him up to the point where the referee broke them apart

due to inactivity. So Francis is not getting dominated or bodied yet in the skill sets that we assume he may not be super elite at. Were you at the Lesnar-Overeem fight back in the day? Yes. So they're standing there, and it was impressive, because you're like, these are two of the biggest guys that could actually throw at each other.

I remember that fight. Two of the cleanest fighters. They were definitely not on TV. And JFK's alive. But when they went, Nganou and Overeem went to the fence, and Nganou had him on the fence, the way he eclipsed his whole body, I was just like, dude, Overeem's huge. And to see a guy that just is that much bigger, his back,

just the broad side of his back. Were you guys surprised that entering this fight, for everything we said about Overeem, that Nganou was a minus 225 betting favorite? Were you surprised? It's a little low, but no, not so much. I mean, we were living in a little low, but no, not so much. I mean, we were living in a pre-Overeem,

get his head set into the moon world. What's funny is Rogan didn't go crazy. He called this fight with Anik. He didn't go crazy, though. It was actually Anik who's like paging Stipe Miocic. Francis Ngannou was coming. Joel was almost like flabbergasted, like he didn't know what to say. I think a lot of us were either like, get the ambulance right now for Overeem.

I don't know, you know, but Anik. Joel thinks he's going to tire out with all those muscles. That's what his concern is. But here's a good stat. With this win, Ngannou joined Rich Franklin, Ronda Rousey, and Anderson Silva as the only UFC modern fighters to start their career with six straight finishes. So this is like, let's get him a title shot. And Luke, what did

they wait? Less than two months? Dana White's like, let's get this guy in right now against Stipe. The very next month. They went from the 2nd of December 2017 to just January 20th of 2018. That's a fast tracking. That's a hugely fast tracking. And so there he is. This is where things start to get a little bit rough for him.

But let's set the stage coming in. Stipe's your champion. And he's your rightful champion. We're talking UFC 220 in January of 2018. He had defended the title in a real tough fight against Overeem and he was starting

to be that guy but Stipe's still in this early sort of financial battle with the UFC and you know the rumor of well Stipe can't sell

he can't talk on the mic and UFC kind of not giving in to his wishes there was a feeling and Stipe brought it up in the interviews I remember talking to him ahead of this fight

that UFC was not only fast tracking Ngannou to be their Mike Tyson but they were trying to get Stipe brought it up in the interviews, I remember talking to him ahead of this fight, that UFC was not only fast-tracking Ngannou to be their Mike Tyson, but they were trying to get Stipe out of office as quickly as possible. Do you guys remember that? Yes, I remember that, of course. It was. And by the way, Stipe coming into this fight with Francis had beaten JDS, Alistair himself, although he had a little bit more trouble with Alistair, to your point, Francis, Arlovsky,

Mark Hunt, and then Heather Winters. Put those names in contests. Five wins in a row for Stipe entering this fight, all by knockout against all, like, former champions or that level. It felt like the biggest heavyweight fight of all time. And I remember I went and met with Ngannou in Boston at a Boston Celtics game, courtside, first time I ever got to sit courtside for this interview, which was really cool. But I remember the NBA players kind of coming up to him in awe,

and that's when I was like, this dude, man, really is the guy that could be the Tyson, like we're talking about, of this sport. Because there was a genuine sort of transcendent awe going on with this guy sitting courtside. I remember the first time he met Joel Embiid, the center for the Sixers. They're both from Cameroon. And Joel had, like had reverential things to say and sort of acknowledged

Ngannou's place. And if you're wondering, Ngannou's still the betting favorite heading into here as the challenger. That's a little surprising. A lot of talk, you know, are we going to see MMA's Mike Tyson? Stock couldn't have been higher. UFC hoping he is the real deal. And finally we had somebody who could stand up to him, but also had the

skills to avoid his face becoming hamburger. This round one, it holds up. It's batshit crazy. The round one is great. I mean, it's not nuts crazy like we've seen, but it is constant damage that they're trading off of each other. It's not only interesting to see Stipe get clipped early. Nothing fully flush and clean, but he's constantly getting touched

to where you're like, most heavyweights are going away at this point. But even more importantly, when Stipe starts to figure out the right pull counter is there, and he starts lighting Francis up to close that round. It reminded me of Amanda Nunes being stunned against Peña. Just kind of her hands out in front of her a little bit. Or being stunned against Cyborg, yet turning that corner and putting it back on her.

And this was man shit. We do not give Stipe, or I historically never did. Maybe you don't give Stipe. Do we give Stipe enough credit in hindsight for going five rounds with this guy, but walking through hell in the first round and putting up enough fight against the bully where Ngannou's kind of like, I don't know how I'm going to beat this guy. You could go through the what-ifs. We do this all the time.

But I was sitting there at cage side, and a couple of those punches by Ngannou, it could have ended like the second Fight did very early. They were so close to landing So it just felt like this was the first anticipation edge of your seat anticipation any second don't blink feel right It felt like any second me Oh church was gonna get clipped and go down So when he weathered that storm and started to land it was a weird feeling in that building It was like okay. Whoa, what happens now? It was kind of fun, actually. And then he started getting takedowns.

Yeah. Started getting takedowns. Takedowns started to come a little bit more easily. By the fourth round, they came like it was nothing. Would you agree that Ngannou's fighting spirit was kind of muffled out at the end of that first round? Yes. That last takedown from Stipe where he put his forearm into his throat,

it was the first time Ngannou had, like, stopped putting up a fight. It looked like it was the first time someone, even including in the gym, had put it on him in a while. And he was like, it's interesting about this. At the end of that round, a lot of factors revealed themselves. One was, okay, we've been saying Francis doesn't need all these skills because he has all these physical gifts.

Well, it turns out, at heavyweight, you just don't need any of those skills until you get to the very top. And then there's like three guys who do what heavyweights don't do he got to that level and it really kind of fuck But it was it was very fatigue based though. And let's be fair. He's not gonna everybody up in the first round Well, Francis talked about this either Francis has a really good chin people just really ever test it But like he's not gonna know how to have the right stamina until he's put in that spot He lost his the obviously credit to Francis for not tapping out of this fight,

not just getting stopped or gassing out completely. He went the distance, whether at the time we were questioning if that was good for him or not. But this was the first time anyone had stretched out that gas tank. So because of that, do you think what became a narrative that he can't wrestle at all, is it that he can't wrestle at all or is it that he was just exhausted after round one? He was exhausted, I think. I mean, it felt existential watching him go to his corner

after like the first round, especially after the second round where he's like, I have a long way to go and I don't know how I'm going to get through this fight. You could see that in his demeanor. Like he was like,

how am I going to do this? Yeah, like I know what I'm up against and I know I don't have any of the tools to fight him. I have nothing left. So he would go in there and try to wing the biggest punch he could throw and then get

taken down, and it was just repeat. Okay, the fact that he finished it, though, went four dull, one-sided rounds where he tried to muffle up energy and get up and try to start something and put him right back down. In hindsight, was that the best thing that could have happened to him? Because he took on a lot of damage, a lot. See, at the time, this did not prove to be true. At the time, I was worried, you kind of indicated it, that that fight went on so long that, you know, I...

He's going to be JDS. Dude, I watched the fight live between Rich Franklin and David Loazzo. I go to this fight all the time, and David Loazzo was not the same after that fight. And I really worried that I think Francis finally gets to a title shot and he's not going to be the same after this one. And for a short time, he wasn't, which we'll talk about in just a second. But mercifully, that did not come to pass.

This is also when expectations play in, right? Like you were having this moment. It's like vertigo. Like this thing is not going my way. It's embarrassing or whatever he's thinking. But the expectations of what he was going to do, what he was going to mean in the UFC, where he was going, obviously there's a huge disappointment.

It all goes funneling out of there. So I think that he felt that. And obviously, it played into his next fight. But I feel like he was dealing with that, too, the mental, all the mental side of it. He talked about that a lot on the buildup to the Derek Lewis fight, which will be the next one, where he's actually openly saying, and now this is also, this is the first fight. Tell me if I'm wrong. The Stipe fight is the first fight with the new train.

No, JD, well, it might be, but because there's Dewey Cooper, but Nick Sick didn't start until the JDS fight. Okay, okay. So more recently. But Dewey Cooper might have started long before that. Yeah, Dewey Cooper seems to be there and overlapping between the two.

But there was a lot of talk where I remember interviewing Francis. He's just like, I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to be. I came in there trying to knock everybody out, and then my problem against Stipe was I'm trying to extend the fight, but I really don't know how. He's sort of filling out his identity.

I also think, and we would find out that this is where him and Dana White would begin to have major issues. Dana calling him a diva, a guy who would do what he wants, spend his money on cars, whatever. And I'm sure that it got to Francis on this God suddenly, right? And then until he wasn't. But Francis's mindset was very shaken, I think, in that Derek fight. He just did not know who he should be, what attitude to take on, how to mentally recover

from. It's like his identity took a blow. Let's talk about that. So we're still in 2018. The Steve Baby Ocic fight was in January of that year. The Derek Lewis fight, I'm going to say in contention for worst fight in UFC history. I was cage-side. It was awful because the expectation, think about it, the expectations if they ever rematch.

Just July of 2018 is all I wanted to say, July of 2018. So we're only six months later, seven months later. So he got rushed back in. The expectations for this are that you're going to see the greatest slugfest of all time and they're still in play because we're going to see the greatest slugfest of all time. And they're still in play. Cause we're going to eventually see this rematch one day. But I also think Dana. Want to own part of the airline you flew with on your last vacation or part of

the company that makes your favorite triple shot latte with extra foam. What about owning part of a company that one day could send you on a tour of outer space. Now you can. With partial shares from TD Direct Investing, you can own part of your favorite companies. Just pick a stock and decide how much to spend on the share. It's a piece of cake. Learn more at td.com slash partial shares. TD, ready for you. Felt betrayed in a way. This sounds stupid. Oh no, 100%. He wanted Francis to be Tyson so badly,

and they put all this into it, and you can argue whether he actually ever really liked Stipe. And yes, I'm sure Francis went over the board and became a diva, and maybe started to try to exercise his value and negotiate and piss Dana off, but Dana was straight-up upset that Francis didn't kind of plan out.

I believe that. Yes, that he didn't fall on like plan out. I believe that. I really believe that. That he didn't fall on his sword is a big deal for Dana. Well, that he didn't pan out and turn into what he was looking like he was. I don't know what they expected. If you have the result from the Miocic fight that you have in January of that year,

why would you put him, A, back in six months, number one, and then against fucking Derek Lewis? Like, the UFC, I understand that they can look at a guy like this and say, okay, he's not who we thought he is, at least at this point in time. But, you know, you hastened his demise at this point. Like, they bear some responsibility.

Yes, 100%. Hastened his demise, but I actually thought I was looking at a broken figure. Like, it was so bizarre re-watching that fight. I didn't re-watch it for this. I actually did a piece on it a little while ago when they were talking about doing that rematch ahead of the Jon Jones jumping in, all that stuff. And when the crowd itself was booing and taking out their phones and doing the lighters and all that stuff like that, it was like theater. It was like performance art that had gone wrong.

It was so weird. It took less than a round to turn. There's 33 total strikes over the course of that fight. To be fair, Derek Lewis' back injury had acted up on the weight of this fight. I think the indictment was more on Ngannou, right? Because everybody's waiting for him to explode. It was the same thing. And he's waiting for a moment to counter.

Derek Lewis is not giving him that. But to your point on the status of Lewis, he had won seven of eight coming in. And the only loss was when he gassed out against Mark Hunt in a fight he should have sort of put away in one of his own. Yes, yes. There's certainly no doubt about that. And also, well, we kind of went over that part. But you get to a point now where I think they had booked this. They should have thought like, oh, this guy's going to be terrified.

We shouldn't look at him against a power puncher. But I think what they thought was, oh, you had such an underwhelming performance against Stipe, let's give you the chance to rebound against a guy who will slug with you but not wrestle. That's what they must have done, not realizing dude, this guy is battered in his mind and you've got to

give him somebody like the Bojan dude who was just there to play for sure. If Dana was mad coming in, which we, I think, can prove through interviews and stuff that he was, he know, just there to play for the chair. Well, if Dana wasn't, was mad coming in, which we, I think, can prove through interviews and stuff that he was, he turned on, he doubled down his turn against Francis on this fight. He is still to this day, never said anything bad about Derek Lewis not pushing the pace and, you know, despite the back injury. It has been, this is proof that Francis sucks and we hate him.

And it's just bizarre looking back. The greatest line of that fight was when John Anik at the very end was like, good luck to our crew trying to find highlights of this fight to show you. He said that at the end of that fight was when John Anik at the very end was like, good luck to our crew trying to find highlights of this fight to show you. He said that at the end of that fight. Let me ask you, Chuck, after this point, how bad do you assess the relationship between Francis and the UFC? After the two losses, certainly that's the worst it's been. Although you could argue now it's pretty fucking bad.

Yeah. He had no leverage after these two losses, so maybe it's worse then for him. I actually thought that's what I thought more so. It was like, now they kind of have Nganou in a place where they can kind of just do what they want again. It felt like it actually got better after this point.

After the whole thing, yes. Francis was a minus 340 favorite in the Lewis fight despite the loss to Miocic. What was the... I want to know what the odds were for the first round finish or the under on the finish, because everybody thought that fight was going to be over quickly. He should have. So I want to ask you one thing about who Francis is. We know that he's confused now in terms of how should I fight.

There's a change of hands recently. This is when he's beginning to be like, where should I be to get the best out of myself? And I'm not saying, by the way, I want to be clear about this. Intervent, Fernand Lopez, I think to be clear about this. I've interviewed Fernan Lopez. I think he is a great trainer with a great gym. Cyril Ghosn is a great fighter for that reason. This is not anything bad. But I should just point out, people learn to not get along,

and you can begin to see Lopez and Ngannou begin to butt heads. Ngannou came out in Southpaw to open both the Stipe fight and the Derek Lewis fight and had zero, really, success from it. He's very confused in terms of who he should be and how he should be. Still the betting favorite because of that power, but, man, it's an interesting time to be in Francis' brain right here because it's not out of the question at this point

to think that he's a bust and we just saw it play out. Right. That was a narrative in the air. It was awesome. That's right. If he's going to get better, if he's going to do something at this point, reinvention is a must. It's not, well, you can do a little going to get better, if he's going to do something at this point, reinvention is a must.

It's not, well, you can do a little bit. No, you have to completely reinvent who you are at this point. Yes, you got the big power, obviously, that will never go away, but okay.

So now we go to the redemption side of things. Curtis Blades is his next and... A violent redemption. A violent redemption. And again, I want to point out something. We're now in July of 2018.

Excuse me. We're now in November of 2018. He me. We're now in November of 2018. He had three fights that year as well. That's crazy return. They sent his ass to fucking China for this too. Beijing, China. He got a performance of the night. Curtis Blades, BC, couldn't last more than 45 seconds against him.

And this was another time where we're like Blades had rebuilt himself from the first. And his only loss at this point is to Francis. Heading into the second fight with Francis, he's beaten a bunch of them, but not limited to Alexi Olenek, Mark Hunt, and Overeem, his biggest name. I had that wrong. Yeah, ahead of the first fight he was less experienced, so he's coming in completely reborn and now he's kind of stopping people on top of that. To stop JDS at this point, it was an eye-opener and it didn't get out of the first round and it was kind of the same thing the first time they really touched

each other. What was the betting favorite on this one? I don't know. I'll have to look it up. Here's the Blake. I thought, because of the timing, because it was all happening in one year, that it was a really, really bad matchup for Nganou. I was like, this is a horrible idea for him to go against a guy who has a target on him anyway from losing before the fight stopping,

and then coming off of that performance against Eric Lewis. I just thought this was an awful matchup. So to see him return to kind of his old self for even that moment in time was kind of eye-opening for me. Yeah, we didn't necessarily learn a lot, but I actually thought that this was a great rebound for him because he got to go there. He's headlining a card.

He went to China. He did the promotion to solid, essentially. He gets a win with no damage. I mean, literally no damage against a guy who's highly ranked, highly well regarded. It's like the best way to just get an experience under your belt without taking a shitload of damage to get to the other side. And so now he can focus in on retooling, redeveloping. I think he has switched camps by this point, although I'm not sure if it's with, again, Eric Nixick told me his first camp was the JDS fight. Just quickly on that rematch, Nkanu opened as a minus 155 betting favorite, but it had

switched to the fight. That's what I thought. Wow. And the books were kind of split across the board after that. And by the way, the Curtis Blade story is not finished being written at all, but it will show that the Ngannou chapters were not favorable to him ultimately in the end. All right, so there's not much to say about that one. Now we move to one of the most important ones.

Here we go. He takes on and defeats Cain Velasquez via KO at just 26 seconds into the first round. This was not only a headlining moment, Chuck, but this fight was called Ngannou versus Velasquez. You have the return of Cain Velasquez after years away. The most

celebrated, Brock Lesnar maybe, but Cain Velasquez, the most celebrated heavyweight probably ever, or one of them anyway. And Big Fight back. It's the main event. It's on ESPN regular. I remember this because they threw to Chael and Ariel to take the SportsCenter afterwards,

and he can't last 30 fucking seconds. To be fair, before you talk about Cain falling apart, look, I'm a big Cain guy. The narrative of this fight was Cain wins this, and no one thought he was going to run through him. But I picked Kane to win. I'm like, you know what? Did you really?

He could stretch him out and wrestle, and he's more savvy than the Blades-level guys. He'll be able to avoid it. I thought so, too. And we were already preparing the narrative of Kane's going to go on and fight Stipe to declare who really is heavyweight of this era. That's exactly correct. And of all time.

Yes. And Ngannou was just like, fuck you. No, fuck your plans. Was it injury or power that ended this fight? It looked like, I mean, I just rewatched this fight. I watched it in its entirety, actually. Yeah, that was a long day. But the way he folded and he kind of screams out in pain,

I thought at the time he broke his leg or something or hurt his ankle. It just didn't look right. But very weird, just the short stuff that gets landed inside, but just the power, you know, of what was displayed there. I just felt like, honestly, going into this fight, I kind of saw it playing out like this. I don't know why, but not exactly like that, but I was like, if I could see it happening very quickly,

let's put it that way for Ngannou, I thought if he was able to touch Kane, it would probably be quick. I remember making that pretty public, too, so maybe you guys can look that up. I'll just say this. I didn't know if it was a punch or injury or a combination of both, probably the latter, but I'll just say this. When it was over, I was like, right, Kane was not the guy. 26 seconds. Yeah, yeah. 26

freaking seconds. So we're starting to get back into, okay, Ngannou's back with two knockouts, but to be fair, really until he fought Stipe the second time, we didn't know and we still don't know what time. Everybody was like, we're not wanting to jump on the hype train again. Because we don't know if he's improved wrestling at all. We don't know if mentally he's where he needs to be.

We don't know if we're just waiting for anyone to take him to the second round and gas him out of there. We don't know shit and we didn't necessarily learn it with this next fight against Junior Dos Santos. We didn't, but we did we didn't necessarily learn it with this next fight against Junior Dos Santos. We didn't, but we did learn, which was, okay, I don't know if he's going to be the guy

who can stop Stipe's takedowns or whatever, but I'll tell you this much. When Francis fights, don't blink. Don't fucking blink. The old adage. So he takes on Junior Dos Santos.

Again, UFC on ESPN card. It is the main event, and Ganu versus Dos Santos is the name of it, and just won 11 into the first round in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He got a performance the name of it. And just won 11 into the first round in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He got a performance of the night bonus. But you see, it's the same thing for the Arlovski fight.

I feel like it's fair to remind people, though. This isn't hella-washed JDS yet. He's on a three-fight win streak, including knocking out Derek Lewis. So I know that that was another one for Derek Lewis that was stamina induced in the end, but it's sort of like he's reborn. He's won 4-5 overall with the only loss to Stipe for the title. This was the last time we sort of propped up Junior Dos Santos and said, but it's sort of like he's reborn, he's won four or five overall with the only loss to Stipe for the title.

This was the last time we sort of propped up Junior Dos Santos and said, maybe he's got another title fight in his future. This is a legitimate sort of, you know, who's coming back into title contention, and it didn't freaking last more than two minutes. Tell me if I'm, you disagree Chuck, what he is showing in these fights is like, dude,

they make one mistake against him, and it is over. That's it. And also, like you mentioned the old guard earlier, this was the moment for me, the JDS and the Cain Velasquez back-to-back, where he's beating these guys who are the staples of this division and went to war against each other. And it was just like this declaration, like, no, this is the new thing now. This is what it is. Goodbye to all that. And they all looked old, slow, outmatched.

They all looked like that. So I think I bought into the Stipe thing at this point, the rematch, because I was like, man, he's just... The benefit of that loss, like you mentioned, what he took from the loss earlier, it would be very interesting to see how he bounces back. But having won those three fights and the way he did, I just felt like... I didn't feel like he'd make the same mistakes against Stipe.

The JDS fight is June of 2019. This would begin this long stretch of relative inactivity where Ngannou's fighting like once a year. And a lot of it is due to the back and forth politics between what's going on in the title division, or with the title at the top of the division at the moment, Daniel Cormier and Stipe Miocic trading fights in their trilogy. This began the continuation of the ice out period when they offer him an unbeaten Jair Rosenstruck. It's a great fight on paper, but he believes he should have had a title shot right here. In hindsight, did he get screwed by the love affair that we had with the DC Stipe? He did get screwed by that, but he got screwed two ways.

One was he should have gotten the fight that was different than that. The other one was, if you recall, they never made this one an interim title fight. And I'm of the belief that interim title fight, we've been saying that this unification between Gon and Francis is a little bit fugazi. But I'll say this, if there was ever a time to build an interim title fight for heavyweight, that was the one. And Francis was like, dude, I will, I have to take this thing out, I will defend this whenever you want.

I'll go around. I'll be as active as you want. He's like, I'll fight every month if you want me to be your Mike Tyson. And I felt like he was due for a good payday too, by the way. So that was the other part. And so he just didn't get it. And this ain't easy matchmaking giving him this version of Rosenstreich. Right, dude. They're giving him a Rosenstreich who was kicking everyone's ass, who was

beating Orlovsky the same way. You know, just like one shot, putting him out. And it was funny. I actually talked to Eric Nixick after this fight because it only lasted 20 seconds. And if you go and look at the combination that Francis threw, and I feel comfortable saying this, I mean, it's a donk combo.

I mean, it's the worst combo ever. He's just fucking throwing. I mean, somebody slowed it down in a slow-mo and put classical music behind it. Yeah, I mean, he's just flailing. And you see, by the way, go watch this shit, because Rosenstreich is backing up the whole time, and he's

watching. And you'll watch him. He sees everything coming, and he's throwing strikes around it to, like, intercept. And they're landing on Francis, and Francis is eating it, and Francis goes, boop! Dude, this is Francis' fuck you moment to Dana White and the Brass.

They're like, okay, you got basically the next Ngannou, which could be Rosenstreich if he beats me. You're just going to throw me another one, and I should have got the title shot. So he just runs. That's what it was. I don't care what you have. I'm going to run right through it and knock you the fuck out. It just shows, even when Francis is not on his game,

which this was the pandemic. This was Jacksonville. There was no crowd for the first time. This was all weird and new. Even when he doesn't perform even close to his abilities, he just still puts people out in like 30 seconds. I don't know what you're supposed to do with that other than be extraordinarily talented. And also the return of the panic on the guy he's hitting. Cause I felt like when he's in his retreat, trying to get out of the way, you see Rosenstruck just like, what is about to happen to me you know all right so then we go through a prolonged layoff where he doesn't fight for nearly a year but it's his last fight on record but BC I

would argue maybe the most important fight he's had up to this point in terms of proving everything so he has now earned a title shot against the champion Stipe Miocic. This will be for the heavyweight championship. It was in March of 2021, and he didn't just win via KO with kind of like a jab, hook, punch, one hit or quitter in the second round, 52 seconds. BC, that was a man in full. That was a guy who showed well-rounded ability, and Stipe didn't have a prayer that night. You know that feeling when you're a kid, and Luke hates pro wrestling, and look, I even kind of hate pro wrestling right now after I go on and off. I get hot and cold. It is stupid. But there's that

point when you're six years old and you're watching pro wrestling at home or maybe in the arena with your parents and you're young enough where it's still kind of possibly real to you damn it but the big villain comes out whether it's whoever was the guy of your era and you're like I don't

want to fucking be in the same state as that guy because he might reach his hand through the teeth of me and kill me. I had that as an adult who is a professional mixed martial artist journalist, whatever that means, where I was just like, this guy's fucking scary as shit. This is obviously the most important fight and win of his career because he finally climbed the mountain and won the title and beat and knocked out and brutalized the guy who stopped

him the first time from doing that. But in terms of the evolution of his game, dude, this is why it's a crime that he's fought three times in three years and that we're waiting, you know, that there's an interim title and all that shit. I cannot wait to see against Cyril Ghosn in this unification if the teases that Francis showed in this fight, being able to stop the takedown, being able to be quick and dangerous and confident on the ground in transitioning, and then the new setup to the offense, going southpaw and throwing these weird combos and just using his jab as a battering ram.

Stipe, who, yes, was not the same compared to the first fight, the DC Wars had added up something, right? He still was willing to fight to the death and tried his best to take every big shot. And he's a freaking prerogative. This was the scariest version that anybody has ever been in UFC history. Talk me down from that pedestal. So in the Predator movies, what scares you about the Predator is one, he's this giant hulking creature

and the other one is he's got all these cool toys and these tactics you couldn't imagine. He could track your blood, the temperature of your blood. All kinds of shit. Dude, that's what Francis is now. Francis before was just a Predator with no armor. Now he is all of that. What do you remember about that fight night? Just being in awe because

honestly, that was the hump, right? Like, he had to get over the steep Amy Ocic thing. There's also a mental hurdle when you lose to a guy like that. So if you're going back into a fight like that, you know, the mental side of it, we saw him affected in the Derek Lewis fight. How would he present himself? It was like none of that existed. You know what I mean?

The way he handled himself, thwarting takedowns and just that, like you mentioned, just the tactical side of it, like what he was doing. I was blown away, and I'm with you guys. I think when that happened, and they were talking about Jon Jones at the time coming up, I was like, there can't be a bigger fight. I honestly can't think of a bigger fight, because Jon Jones is never put into a situation where he'll be an underdog. That was the whole thing. It was like, if there's an Ali moment for Jon Jones, this is it, because now you have a real guy who's standing there that will cast a shadow on you you know what I mean and I wanted to see that you know at the time and that's why it is like tragic in so many ways that they've not even been able to get a fight for this long because at that moment in time I felt like he was possibly one of the biggest I don't know what his drawing

power was yet but he was one of the biggest feeling events the UFC could put on him. That's right, yes. Because I had a long betting history of counting Stipe out, his ability to come back after a knockout and beat Daniel Cormier twice and own that and just basically show you superhero level of punch resistance and grit and being able to change strategies in the moment, which is what we want out of a true champion. I predicted he would defeat Ngannou in this rematch thinking, okay, he's probably gonna have to go five to do it.

Or maybe he's going to have to just dig in and knock out the bully. But I'm like, he can do this. I've seen him do crazy shit yet with all that. And God, I'm still minus one 25, the betting favorite plus one Oh five Miochic. And then obviously it was one-way traffic the whole time. I don't even want to skip past this and end this program because I want to go back and remind people what that feeling was like.

It was awesome, man. This is the most destructive human we've ever seen in this sport if what happened in that second Stipe fight is really just a showcase of what he did from that two-loss losing streak, from being the next big thing and failing, from being at odds with the company, that resolve from being kept out, basically. He had to sit out for a year twice in a row to try to get the fights he wanted. That built a resolve to go back in the gym.

And we still don't really know everything we need to know about this guy at what, age 30? What is he, 33? Yeah. He might be on the way forget greatest heavyweight of all time he might be on the way to becoming one of the greatest of all time if what we saw in that steep a fight is what the future of this division is going to look like i know you love cyril gone in this fight i know this fight on paper is a great style matchup

i'm just saying what i saw the feeling the spirit that spirit that night. If it's real, wake up, bro. Because your guy from France there? They're both from France. The other guy from France? He's going to be looking up, okay? Oui, oui. Yeah, he might. I mean, Francis' power is you can never take it not seriously.

I just feel like we're at the same point for me. I'm at the same point prior to January 20th of 2018 when he fought Stipe, who was significantly more well-rounded. He had a skill advantage on him. I don't know that, Cyril might be more well-rounded, but he does have, in terms of striking, a skill advantage. And so the question now, or at least perceived, perceived skill advantage. And so now the question becomes, can he overcome that? Can he overcome the kind of challenges

they used to bury him? Is it unfair to guess, based on what we saw in the Miocic reading match, and I'm continuing this hype, that Francis may be able to take people down and work in a top game?

Remember Brock Lesnar. For whatever his strengths were overplayed or his drug history and all that, if he got top position on you on the ground, he's going to fuck you up, right? Frank Mir, we saw that.

Is this the future potentially for Francis? Could he take Cheryl Gahn down and just... I actually think that's... I would actually recommend that for him. Yeah, I think he could. You think he could? I think he could do that, yes. I could see that scenario unfolding.

We should do a pregame preview. We should. We're really elaborate. All right, so let's call that a day here. So, 2-22-22, this guy who's been putting together one of the most unusual and frankly historic heavyweight runs, he's going to try and keep it going. We will see what happens. Maybe he becomes the full-on, or no, he retains his full championship,

or maybe Cyril does, but we'll have to see. But for now, that has been the Francis Ngannou resume review. That is Brian Campbell. That is Chuck Mendenhall. I am Luke Thomas. Until next time, enjoy the fight.