With one fight left on his contract with PFL, Francis Ngannou recently teased his interest in a potential reunion with the UFC for a fight against Jon Jones at the planned White House card in June.<\/p>\n
While UFC CEO Dana White later shot down that possibility after expression no interest in working with Ngannou again, the former heavyweight champion even mentioning the fight had many wondering if \u201cThe Predator\u201d was somehow regretting his decision to leave the promotion in free agency. In a very public split, Ngannou relinquished the UFC heavyweight title and signed with PFL before booking back-to-back boxing matches against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.<\/p>\n
As far as his MMA career goes, Ngannou has fought just once since leaving the UFC and that came with a first-round demolition over Renan Ferreira back in 2024. But despite showing interest in a potential Jones fight, UFC veteran Matt Brown refuses to believe Ngannou has any regrets about the decisions he made for his career, especially knowing the financial windfall he reportedly received for his two boxing matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cPersonally, I highly, highly doubt he\u2019s having any regrets,\u201d Brown said on The Fighter vs The Writer. \u201cI think that\u2019s the competitor in him speaking out. I\u2019m sure he wants to fight Jon Jones. He wants to fight the best in the world. Of course, he wants a big fight and make sales and all that stuff. I think it\u2019s the competitor in him. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a single regret.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe made more in one boxing match than he would have made in his entire UFC career, than Jon Jones has made in his entire UFC career \u2014 the greatest ever and some of the biggest fights ever. He made more than Conor [McGregor] has made in his entire UFC career. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a single regret in that respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now Brown understands that at his heart, Ngannou is a fighter and the legacy he leaves behind is largely going to be remembered for his exploits inside the ring or cage and not how much money he\u2019s got in the bank.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where Ngannou might wish he had different opportunities ahead of him because as it stands, his options are limited when it comes to opponents in either boxing or MMA.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a competitor. He wants to fight the best,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI\u2019m sure in the back of his head, his last fight against Renan Ferreira, he\u2019s like \u2018I don\u2019t want to be fighting these guys, I want to fight Jon Jones.\u2019 If there\u2019s any regret there, which is probably as a competitor, he\u2019s regretting it while he\u2019s sleeping on silk sheets on a yacht.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like he\u2019s regretting it while he\u2019s sitting in a two-bedroom apartment in nowhere Mississippi. He\u2019s like \u2018oh f*ck, I f*cked my life up so bad, I\u2019m going to go do meth or something.\u2019 He\u2019s chilling on a yacht like \u2018I wish I could have fought Jon Jones, this sucks.\u2019 How much regret is that really?\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown is quick to point out that everybody involved in combat sports has to remember the term \u201cprizefighting,\u201d and in that regard, Ngannou obviously made the best possible decision for his career.<\/p>\n
Beyond the hefty paydays he reportedly received for the boxing matches against Fury and Joshua, Ngannou also likely cashed in with a sizable salary for his lone fight in the PFL where he personally negotiated his opponent also receiving a multi-million dollar paycheck.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why it\u2019s hard for Brown to buy that Ngannou is mired in regret when it comes to the choices he made before leaving the UFC and then ultimately ended up in boxing and the PFL.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think regret might even be the wrong word,\u201d Brown explained. \u201cIt\u2019s just on his mind. He\u2019s thinking \u2018I want to fight the best guys.\u2019 I guess when I think about regret, I think about someone kind of being upset or sad or wishing they did things different. I\u2019m sure when he\u2019s chilling in his $10 million mansion and his grandkids and great grandkids having a million dollars in the bank at 18 years old, he\u2019s not going to sit there going \u2018I should have done this differently.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of prizefighting, which is what we are doing, he won. He won the prize fight. He got the f*cking prize, and he fought for it. He got the f*cking prize.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Ngannou approaching his 40th birthday in 2026, the clock is already ticking on how much time he has left in his career.<\/p>\n
If he sticks with the PFL, Ngannou could possibly face new heavyweight champion Vadim Nemkov next or maybe he could pursue another lucrative boxing match against an opponent like Deontay Wilder.<\/p>\n
Do those fights present Ngannou with the opportunity to raise his stock as possibly the best heavyweight in MMA history? It seems unlikely and that\u2019s probably what Ngannou is missing right now when he talks about reuniting with the UFC for a showdown against someone like Jones.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s going to say whatever he can to try and get the best fights that he can, and I\u2019m sure he would love to have a better legacy,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThe UFC, they\u2019re the superpower, right? He\u2019s always going to have a \u2018what could have been\u2019 legacy. What he could have done in terms of competition and stuff. I\u2019m sure he thinks about that but again, I\u2019m sure when he puts on his $20,000 suit and his $100,000 watch, [he says] \u2018I think I\u2019ll be OK, I think I can accept this\u2019 and get into his Ferrari and drive around for an hour in the wind. Life will go on.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a competitor, I\u2019m sure he thinks about it regularly. He\u2019s 39. He\u2019s on his way to the end, very close. He\u2019s going to try to squeeze all the juice out that he can.\u201d<\/p>\n
As far as his financials, Brown can\u2019t help but feel that Ngannou made the right decision when he decided to forgo signing a new deal with the UFC and opted to bet on himself instead. He may have lost both of his boxing matches, and his one victory in the PFL probably didn\u2019t do much for his overall resume, but Ngannou still won in every possible metric measurable when it comes to his longterm future.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad used to say \u2018money doesn\u2019t buy happiness, son, but being broke doesn\u2019t buy shit so go make some f*cking money and figure it out,\u2019\u201d Brown said with a laugh. \u201cThat\u2019s a really good point. Make the f*cking money and then figure it the f*ck out. I think that\u2019s the situation that Ngannou is in right now. He\u2019s trying to figure it out. He\u2019s got money that\u2019s going to last generations and generations. What\u2019s going to bring me happiness now?<\/p>\n
\u201cI know a lot of very wealthy people who went through this. I\u2019ve spoken to them about it where they went through these kinds of times where money isn\u2019t an issue to them anymore, and it\u2019s like what\u2019s next? I did that job. What\u2019s next? My guess, I don\u2019t know Francis at all, but my guess is that\u2019s kind of where he\u2019s at right now. He\u2019s thinking what\u2019s next? What can I do to have true fulfillment in my life? What can bring happiness for the rest of my life? Being that he\u2019s still physically a very capable fighter, that\u2019s what he wants to do. He\u2019s a fighter at heart and that\u2019s what he wants to do. He never has to worry about money for the rest of his life so when he\u2019s over the fighting part, he\u2019ll find another thing. It\u2019s a lot easier to go down that path finding happiness when you\u2019ve got $50 million in the bank.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday with audio only versions of the podcast available on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Google Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, and iHeartRadio<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With one fight left on his contract with PFL, Francis Ngannou recently teased his interest in a potential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,37036,1863,8417,329,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-377491","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-mmaf-podcast-network","14":"tag-pfl","15":"tag-pfl-news","16":"tag-podcasts","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-ufc","19":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377491","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=377491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}