Francis Ngannou has one fight left on his current deal with the PFL and the promotion fully expects him to return to action in early 2026.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s according to PFL CEO John Martin, who confirmed he\u2019s had talks with Ngannou and his camp about fighting again after his lone appearance for the organization came back in 2024 when he demolished Renan Ferreira inside the first round. Ngannou has teased his interest in returning to boxing as well but Martin promises the PFL has plans for \u201cThe Predator\u201d long before his contract might expire.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve spoken to Francis a number of times,\u201d Martin told MMA Fighting. \u201cHe knows we\u2019re working on something very special for him. I\u2019d like to see what happens in the fight this week and see if [Vadim] Nemkov wins, if that makes sense. But Francis knows that we\u2019re forward to him fighting in 2026, relatively soon hopefully and we\u2019re trying to put something together that\u2019s very special for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got one more fight under his contract and we\u2019ll see what happens after that. In the meantime, he\u2019s been a great ambassador for us and PFL Africa. I know he\u2019s explored some [options] on the boxing front, too. We\u2019ve been in reasonably frequent communication with him and his manager and his lawyer. I look forward to seeing Francis in the cage again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ngannou hinted recently that his current PFL contract expires before the UFC is scheduled to go to the White House in June as he\u2019s called for a fight against Jon Jones.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a new PFL heavyweight champion is set to be crowned on Saturday in Lyon, France when Vadim Nemkov clashes with Renan Ferreira.<\/p>\n
A win by Nemkov could serve as the perfect opponent for Ngannou in his return to MMA.<\/p>\n
Whether that happens or not remains to be seen but Martin vows that Ngannou is still very much part of the PFL\u2019s plans for the future heading into 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah [he will fight in PFL again],\u201d Martin said. \u201cI just saw him not that long ago and he looks like he\u2019s in great shape. I\u2019m not worried about him not being in physical condition. He\u2019s a physical specimen all around. Yes, stay tuned.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Francis Ngannou has one fight left on his current deal with the PFL and the promotion fully expects…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,1863,8417,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-340552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-pfl","14":"tag-pfl-news","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}