{"id":667801,"date":"2026-05-13T08:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T08:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/667801\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T08:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T08:14:08","slug":"ngannous-coach-francis-is-undoubtedly-the-best-heavyweight-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/667801\/","title":{"rendered":"Ngannou’s coach: ‘Francis is undoubtedly the best heavyweight in the world’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former UFC<\/a> heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou<\/a> returns to the cage for the first time since October 2024 on Saturday on the MVP MMA: Rousey vs. Carano main card against veteran Philipe Lins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ngannou, also the former Professional Fighters League Super Fights Heavyweight Champion, left the PFL earlier this year and inked a deal with Most Valuable Promotions. He’ll make his promotional debut at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California on May 16 in the first MMA event to air on Netflix. Ngannou’s striking coach, Dewey Cooper, insists his fighter is the best heavyweight on the planet.<\/p>\n

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“Everything is terrific, man. May 16th. We’re super excited. I really feel it’s a great incentive, it being the first mixed martial arts fight on Netflix. I think that puts the cherry on top for him psychologically because he’s been training extremely well and we can’t wait until fight night,” Cooper said on MVP UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“He’s a two-company world champion. He’s never been dethroned. He’s never lost his championship belt in two major organizations. Francis is undoubtedly the best heavyweight mixed marital artist in the world. He’s never lost the championship in either company. So, he has a standard that he puts himself on,” continued Cooper.<\/p>\n

“He looks phenomenal. We’re excited about what he’s going to show fight night. It’s going to be something fantastic … He’s on another level, guys.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou returns to the cage for the first time since October 2024 on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,485,322470,786,29825,120709,785,435,269777,33722,85],"class_list":["post-667801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-california","tag-dewey-cooper","tag-fighting","tag-francis-ngannou","tag-inglewood","tag-mma","tag-netflix","tag-philipe-lins","tag-professional-fighters-league","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667801","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=667801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}