Natten till söndag tvingades hajptåget med Francis Ngannou ombord nödbromsa. Han uppvisade bristfälliga kunskaper i brottning, dålig kondition och fick mer eller mindre storstryk av tungviktsmästaren Stipe Miocic under UFC 220.
I kampanjen kring galan, marknadsfördes Francis Ngannou som ett hejdlöst vidunder som endast behöver ett slag för att skicka Stipe Miocic till medvetslöshetens mörkaste avgrund. När andra ronden nått sitt slut däremot, framstod Ngannou som en amatör i jämförelse med Miocic.
Komikern och UFC-kommentatorn, Joe Rogan bidrog stort till hajpen kring Francis Ngannou, och påstår nu att Francis Ngannou inte tränade någon markbaserad kamp överhuvudtaget inför titelmatchen. I sin podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, säger Joe Rogan följande:
Before, everyone was saying, ‘Oh my God, he’s in tremendous shape, everything is amazing. Then afterwards it’s like, ‘Oh, he doesn’t train on the ground.’ What? He doesn’t train on the ground? They go, ‘All he wants to do is strike.’ You can’t let him do that. You can’t let him.
He’s going to fight a Division-1 wrestler. How is he going to do this? How is going to stand up? He’s going to magically get up? You have to train it.
Francis Ngannou har refererat till förlusten mot Miocic som det mest utvecklande momentet i sin karriär hittills under presskonferensen efter galan:
I’ve been in this sport only four years, and I know I’ll keep learning and improving. What happened tonight was the last step for me to learn about this sport, because it’s the only thing I’ve never faced – a five-round fight, and how to deal with it. I made a mistake, and that will not happen again.
I came here today to win the fight. I just discovered a new part [of the game] that I was ignorant about.
The problem is I underestimated my opponent, and I went too hard in the first round, and he was tougher than I thought. So [Miocic] resisted, and he put together a better game plan than me.
I’m going to keep improving and come back stronger than I was. I learned more [in this fight] than I did in the past four years.
32 minuter och 33 sekunder in i podcasten kan ni höra Joe Rogan och ONE-mästaren Ben Askren prata om detta:
