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<\/p>\nFrancis Ngannou looks set to have an opponent lined up for his return to MMA after over a year.<\/p>\n
\u2018The Predator\u2019 has not been in the cage since knocking out Renan Ferreira back in October 2024.<\/p>\n
Since then, he has shown interest in another move to boxing, having already faced Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua in the ring.<\/p>\n
Ngannou is now expected to face the new PFL heavyweight titleholder at the start of next year.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVadim Nemkov crowned PFL heavyweight champion<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Photo by Cooper Neill\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
Vadim Nemkov appears to be the frontrunner to be Ngannou\u2019s next opponent.<\/p>\n
On Saturday night, the former Bellator light heavyweight champion became a two-weight titleholder when he claimed the PFL heavyweight world championship with a first-round submission victory.<\/p>\n
The win came in only 28 seconds longer than it took Ngannou to finish Renan Ferreira, who lost the belt in Lyon, France.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, Nemkov expressed his desire to defend his new championship against \u2018The Predator\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll fight anybody that the company wants me to. But I really wanna fight Francis,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n
PFL have plans for Francis Ngannou in 2026<\/p>\n
PFL CEO John Martin recently hinted at \u2018something very special\u2019 being planned for Ngannou in 2026.<\/p>\n
He said to MMA Fighting: \u201cI\u2019ve spoken to Francis a number of times.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe knows we\u2019re working on something very special for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to see what happens in the fight this week and see if (Vadim) Nemkov wins, if that makes sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Francis knows that we\u2019re looking 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\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Francis Ngannou looks set to have an opponent lined up for his return to MMA after over a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-344936","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-mma","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344936","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=344936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}