Francis Ngannou Will Never Be in the UFC Again: Dana White Shows No Mercy to Former Champion for Insulting UFC Contract

UFC 285 is right around the corner where the big boys Jon Jones and Ciryl Gane will be battling it out for the vacant Heavyweight title. But the sole reason they are fighting for the belt is that Francis Ngannou vacated the division earlier this year before leaving the company for good, after having contract disputes with the organization for quite a while. These negotiation issues have been very public to MMA fans for a while and they didn’t sound very good at the time when they were happening.

Following the UFC 285 ceremonial weigh-ins, Dana White had some really interesting things to say at the media scrum. When asked by a reporter whether he is still in talks with Francis, Dana had this to say –

“No, no. We negotiated with him for years. It’s over, that’s over, yeah”, and when the same reporter asked him if Francis will ever come back to the UFC again, Dana added, “No, he will never be in the UFC again”.

And just when everyone thought this was enough news to stir up the MMA world, another reporter confronted him a few minutes later by asking Dana whether he is really sure about Francis never being allowed back in the UFC, to which Dana doubled down and added –

“Yeah, I never say never. But I’ll give you a never on that one. Yeah, we tried”.

While Dana White is known to have several of his claims debunked in the past, we will really have to wait to find out whether we get to see Francis Ngannou grace the Octagon one more time or not.

What does Francis think about his future?

While Francis Ngannou doesn’t seem to be even slightly bothered by his release from the UFC, he sure does seem to have laid out the possibility of being the second half of several “big money fights“ in the sport of Boxing. Right from the likes of Deontay Wilder to Tyson Fury, Francis Ngannou wasted no time to ruffle feathers with some of the most elite Heavyweight boxers to keep his name in the conversation.

I said only boxing so he can keep his limbs 🤣 like I said we will see if he’s a man of his word https://t.co/8CJT1FUXJ0

— Francis Ngannou (@francis_ngannou) February 17, 2023

Whether Francis Ngannou sticks around in the UFC Heavyweight division picture or not, UFC 285 is still going down this weekend as Jon Jones will appear to cement his legacy by attempting to become the Heavyweight champion against the Frenchman Ciryl Gane in the main event.