{"id":79748,"date":"2025-08-19T11:08:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T11:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/79748\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T11:08:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T11:08:13","slug":"francis-ngannou-reveals-plan-to-fight-deontay-wilder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/79748\/","title":{"rendered":"Francis Ngannou reveals plan to fight Deontay Wilder\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Francis Ngannou<\/a> has said he is \u201csetting up\u201d a fight with Deontay Wilder<\/a>, as the mixed martial arts star aims to return to boxing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ngannou, a former UFC heavyweight champion, has boxed twice professionally, losing a controversial decision to Tyson Fury in 2023 and suffering a knockout by Anthony Joshua<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n

Ngannou, 38, dropped and at times outboxed Fury in their fight, but he was denied the WBC heavyweight title when the scorecards were revealed. Against Joshua, the Cameroonian was knocked down three times en route to a second-round stoppage loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, Ngannou bounced back when he returned to his first sport, MMA<\/a>, stopping Renan Ferreira in the first round in October<\/a> to win the PFL Super Fight heavyweight title.<\/p>\n

That bout was Ngannou\u2019s first in MMA since January 2022, when he outpointed Ciryl Gane to retain the UFC heavyweight title, which he vacated when he left the UFC in early 2023.<\/p>\n

Next, however, Ngannou wishes to return to boxing, and he is eyeing a clash with former heavyweight champion Wilder.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I [am pursuing it],\u201d Ngannou said on the Ariel Helwani Show<\/a>. \u201cWe haven\u2019t engaged personally, but it\u2019s gonna be soon.<\/p>\n

Francis Ngannou (left) in his most-recent fight, an MMA win against Renan Ferreira (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re setting some things up, but I keep training. I\u2019m training. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would say [it\u2019s my preferred fight in boxing and MMA]; since the Jon Jones fight is off, it cannot be part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ngannou was referring to UFC legend Jones, who recently vacated the heavyweight title \u2013 which he won after Ngannou\u2019s UFC exit \u2013 and retired from MMA.<\/p>\n

Ngannou had expressed a desire to face Jones in a crossover bout, which the PFL seemed keen to facilitate for him. The UFC seemed less keen, however<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Deontay Wilder last fought in June, stopping Tyrell Anthony Herndon (Getty)<\/p>\n

\u201cAll you have to know is that we are good,\u201d Ngannou said about his relationship with the PFL, with whom he has one fight left on his contract.<\/p>\n

Wilder, 39, last fought in June, stopping Tyrell Anthony Herndon in seven rounds<\/a>. The win was the American\u2019s first since he knocked out Robert Helenius in 2022. <\/p>\n

Before beating Herndon, Wilder\u2019s last fight was a knockout loss to Zhilei Zhang in 2024, which followed a points defeat by Joseph Parker in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Francis Ngannou has said he is \u201csetting up\u201d a fight with Deontay Wilder, as the mixed martial arts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,1348,3355,786,3359,3353,785,44,3356,3354,3357,85,3358,1346],"class_list":["post-79748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-breaking-news","tag-daily-news","tag-fighting","tag-global-news","tag-inkl","tag-mma","tag-news","tag-news-app","tag-news-headlines","tag-news-today","tag-sports","tag-today-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79748","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=79748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}