Francis Ngannou was the biggest free-agent signing the PFL has ever made but to date the former UFC heavyweight champion has only fought for the promotion one time \u2014 a lopsided TKO victory over Renan Ferreira back in October 2024.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the PFL debuted its new promotion rankings and Ngannou was nowhere to be found at heavyweight with new champion Vadim Nemkov at the top with Ferreira right behind him. The rankings immediately raised a red flag when it comes to Ngannou\u2019s future with the promotion, although PFL CEO John Martin says that wasn\u2019t his call.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t come up with the rankings,\u201d Martin told MMA Fighting. \u201cI haven\u2019t spoke to Combat Registry. Maybe it\u2019s Francis\u2019 inactivity that didn\u2019t allow him to be eligible for the rankings. There was nothing on our part to keep him out of the rankings.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said, Ngannou\u2019s immediate future still remains in limbo, because he\u2019s openly stated that he has one fight left on his deal with PFL, and he claims there is an expiration date attached to his contract if he\u2019s going to compete there again.<\/p>\n
While Ngannou has been active promoting PFL Africa, there\u2019s still no word on whether or not he\u2019ll ever actually fight for the organization again after inking a lucrative deal to move there from the UFC.<\/p>\n
For his part, Martin didn\u2019t exactly offer an encouraging update where Ngannou was concerned, at least in regards to him fighting any time soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have anything to announce at the moment on Francis,\u201d Martin said. \u201cIf there\u2019s a fight that makes sense for Francis and the PFL, we\u2019ll make it happen. We\u2019re still working through that. When there\u2019s something to announce, I\u2019ll announce it. I know that\u2019s not satisfying but that\u2019s where I\u2019m at right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Ngannou\u2019s contract is operating on a time limit, the PFL could end up in a position where he has to be booked prior to a certain date or his deal may come to an end.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can find a fight that makes sense for him and the PFL, then I think there\u2019s some real chance that he\u2019s going to fight,\u201d Martin said about Ngannou. \u201cLook, Francis is a real talent. I know the fans would love to see him fight. We\u2019re working through it. I don\u2019t have anything to announce right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Francis Ngannou was the biggest free-agent signing the PFL has ever made but to date the former UFC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[829,19847,19851,99],"class_list":["post-437417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-latest-news","tag-pfl","tag-pfl-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}