{"id":86543,"date":"2025-08-23T03:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T03:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/86543\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T03:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T03:39:10","slug":"francis-ngannou-wants-to-return-targeting-deontay-wilder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/86543\/","title":{"rendered":"Francis Ngannou Wants To Return, Targeting Deontay Wilder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/fighters\/francis-ngannou-530677\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Francis Ngannou<\/a> is still looking for his first boxing victory. And the heavyweight MMA star thinks he knows where he might be able to find it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would say so,\u201d Ngannou told journalist Ariel Helwani during a recent interview when asked about his No. 1 target.<\/p>\n<p>Ngannou made a splash in his first of two forays into boxing. He put massive favorite Tyson Fury down but lost by a controversial split decision in October 2023 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p>The 38-year-old Cameroonian&#8217;s second boxing match didn&#8217;t go as well, as he was knocked out in two rounds by Anthony Joshua in March 2024 in Riyadh.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s when Ngannou decided to put the boxing gloves down and return to the cage. However, after one MMA fight \u2014 a first-round knockout of Renan Ferreira in October \u2014 he\u2019s ready to return to the sweet science.<\/p>\n<p>And why not Wilder, 39, for his return opponent? The former world titleholder has a big name and appears to be vulnerable.<\/p>\n<p>Wilder (44-4-1, 43 KOs) has seen better days, losing four of his last six bouts. However, he did get back on track by <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/news\/deontay-wilder-tyrrell-herndon-report\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stopping journeyman Tyrrell Herndon<\/a> in the seventh round in June in Wichita, Kansas.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t look quite like the monster of old, but he eventually got the job done.<\/p>\n<p>The five-year WBC beltholder is now on the market for a new opponent. And Ngannou plans to give him a ring.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe haven\u2019t engaged personally, but it\u2019s gonna be soon,\u201d Ngannou said. \u201cWe are setting some things up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Francis Ngannou is still looking for his first boxing victory. And the heavyweight MMA star thinks he knows&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6842,6836,6841,6840,6834,6102,6837,6838,6839,6835,6588,6847,6846,6830,6828,6829,6844,6831,6827,6848,6843,101,6845,6826,6833,56,54,55,6832],"class_list":["post-86543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-community","tag-boxing-fights","tag-boxing-history","tag-boxing-interviews","tag-boxing-magazine","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxing-photos","tag-boxing-rankings","tag-boxing-schedule","tag-boxing-videos","tag-boxing-results","tag-disqualification","tag-draw","tag-fight","tag-fighter","tag-fighter-news","tag-knockout","tag-latest-boxing-matches","tag-ring","tag-ring-magazine","tag-split-decision","tag-sports","tag-technical-knockout","tag-the-ring","tag-top-fighters","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}