Pound 4 Pound<\/a> podcast and had a definitive answer when asked for his main event pick.<\/p>\n\u201cWell, my take is that it\u2019s a great fight,\u201d Ngannou said. \u201cEven for 10 years there has been debate around it and it still gets more interest and more attraction than a fight of people that are still active, so I mean, there has always been a question of \u2018If Gina\u2026 if Ronda\u2026 if, if, if\u2026\u2019 and now it\u2019s happening. So I think we are just going to enjoy the show, but who am I picking? I have to give Ronda on this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rousey is the logical favorite on paper, having reigned as UFC bantamweight champion in her prime and being five years younger than Carano. Both women are coming off of lengthy layoffs, with Rousey last fighting in 2016 and Carano in 2009, so even in that department Rousey has the slight edge. Carano, along with Cris Cyborg and others, is widely credited with being at the center of the women\u2019s MMA movement in the late 2000s with Rousey later turning that movement into a boom period when she made her UFC debut in 2013.<\/p>\n
How either fighter performs when the cage door closes is anyone\u2019s guess, but Ngannou likes what he\u2019s seen from Rousey in the lead-up to the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Ronda on this one,\u201d Ngannou said. \u201cEven though Gina seems to be very calm, very prepared, it looks like Ronda still has that fire. You can see at the press conference, picking it up, I\u2019m like, \u2018Hold on a minute.\u2019 Like, step back.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the moment, it\u2019s unclear whether Ngannou vs. Lins or Diaz vs. Perry has the honor of being the May 16 co-main event, but Ngannou would like to be seated somewhere where he can watch Diaz and Perry throw down, whether it\u2019s before or after his battle against Lins.<\/p>\n
When it comes to those two wild men though, Ngannou isn\u2019t making a pick.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I get that information, I was so excited,\u201d Ngannou said of the Diaz vs. Perry announcement. \u201cI was just like, I hope I can watch this fight, because both of them they\u2019re just going to go there and try to beat each other up. I don\u2019t know, I like that matchup very much. I love that matchup.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s hard, though. Those are people that you cannot predict. None of them you can count out. They\u2019re going to stick there until the end unless something happens, I don\u2019t see none of them quitting or giving up. It\u2019s hard to pick that one. Listen, I\u2019m just going to enjoy watching them, I don\u2019t really care who wins. I think it\u2019s going to be good to watch either way, doesn\u2019t matter who is the winner.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Francis Ngannou shares the stage with some of MMA\u2019s biggest names on May 16 and he\u2019s just hoping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85],"class_list":["post-643165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643165","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=643165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}