(VIDEO) Francis Ngannou practiced kicking for the first time in eight months

NOVEMBER 26, 2022 18:00

Sports

Heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou has not fought since the first month of this year, when he defeated Cyril Gane by unanimous decision. It was a very close fight, but Francis still managed to take it in his favor, but it was by no means an easy match.

What is probably known to everyone now is that he fought injured, and in the training camp before the title defense he injured the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments, and after the victory over Gane, he underwent surgery.

The other day, Ngannou made heavy accusations against the UFC that they knew all this: “Everything was designed for me to fall and collapse — you know, not to come back. That was it,” Ngannou said. “That was how it was designed.

Like, ‘OK, that’s how it’s going to be, let’s go. The injury happened on Dec. 28, exactly three days after Christmas”. “We were sparring and I think he got overwhelmed,” Ngannou explained.

“He shot a [desperation] takedown, and when I tried to turn around, I heard the crack on my knee. Right at that moment when you hear that on your knee, you know that something is happening. I was so warmed up that I couldn’t feel it, exactly, but I knew something [was] going on.

I was hoping that maybe it was just a bad feeling”.

Ngannou refused to leave the fight

“I was willing to do anything possible for me to heal a little bit,” Ngannou said. “I wasn’t expecting to [fully] heal up.

I wasn’t expecting some magical solution to resolve the injury, but I was just hoping to get a little bit better, as much as possible. “Technically, I couldn’t do anything. I wasn’t allowed to do anything where I had to pivot with striking, or anything where I would have to take a chance”.