{"id":340617,"date":"2025-12-11T01:10:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T01:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/340617\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T01:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T01:10:07","slug":"francis-ngannou-breaks-silence-of-dana-whites-allegation-of-physical-altercation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/340617\/","title":{"rendered":"Francis Ngannou breaks silence of Dana White\u2019s allegation of physical altercation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO Dana White alleged that his former fighter \u2014 ex-UFC Heavyweight champion and current PFL athlete Francis Ngannou \u2014 got physical with him and UFC Chief Business Officer Hunter Campbell after a dispute over not receiving a $50,000 \u201cPerformance of the Night\u201d bonus (full details here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

White has called Ngannou a \u201cbad guy<\/a>\u201d multiple times in recent years, but this was easily the most damning accusation yet.<\/p>\n

Of course, White\u2019s account was only one side of the story, and many fans believed he was simply trying to smear his former champion even more. Now Ngannou has broken his silence \u2026 and things somehow got even murkier.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the best person to answer is Dana White\u2026 At some point, I feel very annoyed to have to be responsible for what people say,\u201d Ngannou told Ariel Helwani today. \u201cBasically, if Dana says this, then I\u2019m out here going to defend myself about what Dana said, or whomever. I think whatever he said \u2014 if he\u2019s at peace with it \u2014 it\u2019s okay. Why am I not surprised? I don\u2019t find it necessary to address it. At some point it was, but over time, it\u2019s not anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked why he still hasn\u2019t addressed the allegation directly, Ngannou said he simply wants to avoid drama.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe I\u2019m getting old. I feel like I have less energy for drama stuff. I just want to be in peace and for people to leave me alone. That\u2019s all\u2026 We shouldn\u2019t have gone this way. Why did we get all this way, first of all? What\u2019s the purpose? How did we get from where we were to where we are right now? \u2026 I would just say it\u2019s quite disappointing the way things went. That\u2019s all.<\/p>\n

Ngannou was then asked point-blank if he ever put his hands on White \u2014 and again, he refused to confirm or deny it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, he must be the only person I ever put my hands on,\u201d Ngannou said. \u201cIn his office \u2014 that\u2019s what he said, right? Well, I\u2019m sure he has a lot of cameras there.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Helwani followed up by asking if he wanted White to release the footage, Ngannou didn\u2019t bite.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not inviting him to do anything. I\u2019m not in court,\u201d he said. \u201cI just get tired of this stuff. I saw what Dana said and scrolled. I get past it\u2026 I\u2019m long gone from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ngannou has not competed since demolishing PFL champion Renan Ferreira in under four minutes back in October 2024 (watch highlights<\/a>). He also revealed during the interview that his current PFL contract is \u201cending soon,\u201d but he still owes the promotion one more fight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO Dana White alleged that his former fighter \u2014 ex-UFC Heavyweight champion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,8081,85,1396,14855],"class_list":["post-340617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-professional-fighters-league-pfl","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}