From child labor to international superstar: The story of Francis Ngannou

Francis Ngannou doesn’t do things by half-measure. By his mid-twenties, he had seen and experienced more than most people do in their lifetime. Just a snippet of the adversity he has faced would be enough to break many of us, but Ngannou used these challenges as rocket fuel, overcoming obstacle upon obstacle to forge a better life for himself and his family. In this article, we look at the extraordinary life of Francis Ngannou.

Childhood Years

Francis Ngannou was born on September 5, 1986, in the Batie Village of Cameroon. At age six, his parents divorced, and he went to live with his Aunt while he completed his education. When we think of Francis Ngannou today, it’s hard to imagine the former UFC Heavyweight Champion ever being bullied at school, but he was. Ngannou struggled to make friends and was ridiculed by other pupils for not having a pen to make notes in lessons. 

He described his childhood as miserable. ”I kind of had a future world in my mind. A world with a perfect family that could have three meals per day, go to school, have friends, and go back home. Life has taught me not to expect anything from anybody. That’s why I’m a champion.”

Four years later, at just ten years old, Ngannou got a job in the local sand quarry to raise much-needed funds for his family. Unable to do the ordinary things that kids his age should have been doing – running around with his friends, playing football, chasing girls – Ngannou was busy working a physical job that in the Western world is typically reserved for strong, adult men. Ngannou had no option but to grow up quickly, which he recognizes has impacted him later in life as he harbors built-up frustration due to the struggles and adversity he faced in his younger years. He worked in the quarry for seven years until he left school at 17.

Young Francis

It’s fair to say that fighting is in Francis Ngannou’s blood. His father was a known street fighter in the Batie Village and had quite a reputation, which didn’t favor Ngannou due to the negative stigma associated with his father’s propensity for violence. This didn’t stop local gangs from trying to recruit Ngannou, but he showed great maturity at a young age by rejecting their advances. Most children look up to their parents as role models regardless of what they get up to in their private lives, but a young Francis was able to look at his father and decide early on that he didn’t want to follow in his footsteps; instead, he tried to forge his own path, one more fruitful, despite the opportunities in Cameroon being limited.

A few years after leaving school, a 22-year-old Ngannou, inspired by ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson, decided to channel his pent-up anger and frustration into boxing against his family’s wishes. After training for approximately one year, he had to put his boxing dreams on hold due to an illness, and over the next three years, he took various jobs in his village to make ends meet. Disillusioned with how his life was panning out, Ngannou decided to leave Cameroon in search of a better life and embarked on a journey to emigrate to Paris, France.

Quest For A Better Life

Francis Ngannou’s journey from Batie Village to Paris was challenging, to say the least. After travelling over 3,000 kilometers, he arrived in Morocco, a country in North West Africa that is a popular route into Spain and mainland Europe. 

Ngannou spent approximately one year in Morocco waiting for the right opportunity to make his voyage over the border into mainland Europe and spent much of this time sleeping in the forest, trying to evade the border police. Struggling for food, clothes, and sanitation, there were periods when Ngannou almost gave in due to being so drained, weak, and fed up with his predicament. He persevered, mustering the strength to continue living in these squalid conditions, and after a very long twelve months, made it to Europe.

Upon reaching Spain, Ngannou was arrested by Spanish police for illegally crossing the border and was imprisoned for two months. Once released, he continued another 2000 kilometers to Paris, a more achievable journey now that he was on the same continent. Upon arriving in France, it took a while for his luck to change.

2013: 7 years ago we were freed by Spanish homeland security after spending 2 months in jail for illegally entering Europe by sea. This, after attempting for one year from Morocco. I had nothing by then but a dream and a faith of pursuing it.
Some people will always (1/3) pic.twitter.com/ogfyDT5ZNw

— Francis Ngannou (@francis_ngannou) June 11, 2020

Not only was Ngannou 5,000 kilometers from his home, he had no ID, money, or clothes other than what he was wearing at the time. Without friends in the French capital, Ngannou had no option but to sleep on the streets in a climate much colder than he was used to. When reflecting on his time in Paris, the way Ngannou described the experience gives a great insight into how determined, resilient, and mentally tough he is:

”It’s very difficult when you arrive at a place like Paris and you don’t have anyone, but for me, it was an opportunity. At the time, I didn’t even have a place to sleep; I didn’t have anything. But I didn’t care about that because I was happy. I was happy because I knew this was an opportunity for me to make something of myself and to progress.”

Introduction To MMA

After spending two months sleeping in a car park in Paris, he began volunteering for a homeless charity, ‘La Chorba,’ which aimed to provide 900 meals per day to destitute people in the area. The charities director, Khater Yenbou, learned of Ngannou’s desire to become a boxer and introduced him to Didier Carmont. The pair became friends, and Carmont then guided Ngannou towards the MMA Factory in Paris, where he began training under the tutelage of Fernand Lopez.

Lopez saw potential, and even though Ngannou only had dreams of becoming a boxer, Lopez convinced him to focus his efforts on MMA instead, a sport that Ngannou didn’t even know existed before setting foot in the gym. The practice was going well for Ngannou, and he began sleeping inside the MMA Factory until suitable accommodation was sourced. 

UFC Come Calling

Three years after his foray into Mixed Martial Arts, Francis Ngannou had amassed a 5-1 record and caught the eye of the sport’s biggest organization, the UFC. A contract offer soon followed, and Ngannou’s debut came in the heavyweight against the Brazilian Luis Henrique on December 19, 2015.

In boxing, it’s well known that up-and-coming talent gets pitted against journeymen to pad their records. In the UFC, fighters with potential are rarely allowed to cherry-pick fights, and Ngannou was no different. His opponent, Henrique, was riding a six-fight winning streak going into the fight at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida. The bout didn’t start well for Ngannou. Thirty seconds in, Henrique caught a leg kick and took him to the ground, unleashing numerous strikes on the UFC debutant. Round Two was a different story as Ngannou’s striking skills became apparent. He landed a flurry of combinations before a vicious left uppercut floored his opponent, and a follow-up hammer fist ended the contest. 

Many fans will know Ngannou’s second opponent, a UFC debutant now ranked heavyweight contender, Curtis Blaydes, who came into the organization with an unblemished 5-0 record and 100% finish rate. Ngannou began the fight well, landing a straight left hand, which knocked Blaydes off balance. The rest of the first round was a stand-up slugfest in which Ngannou gained the upper hand, and as the fighters went back to the corner at the end of the round, there was visible swelling on Blaydes’s right eye. The eye got considerably worse during the second, and before the fighters came out for the final round, the doctor intervened, checked Blaydes’s eye, and deemed him unfit to continue. Ngannou won via TKO (doctor stoppage.)

Three more stoppage victories followed for Ngannou, including a TKO victory against UFC heavyweight legend Andrei Arlovski in the first round on January 28, 2017, in Denver, Colorado. The victory extended his MMA record to 10-1 and was his fifth straight win in the UFC. Just over four years since his MMA debut, Francis Ngannou not only had a reputation for being one of the best strikers in the UFC but was now considered an elite heavyweight and one of the best in the world. 

Road To UFC Title Shot

Following his win against Andrei Arlovski, Ngannou earned himself a number-one contender fight for the UFC Heavyweight Championship. His opponent, Alistair Overeem, was an MMA legend who had a record of 43-16 (1NC.) The vastly experienced Overeem had notable wins against the likes of Brock Lesnar, Junior dos Santos, Fabricio Werdum, and Vitor Belfort. The fight was arguably the biggest test for Ngannou in his MMA career so far.

Overeem came out the agressor. Ngannou weathered the storm and delivered a devasting left uppercut to finish his opponent less than two minutes into the first round. The finishing sequence has since been labeled as one of the most brutal knockouts in UFC history. It was a huge statement from Ngannou, and fans were drooling at the prospect of a heavyweight title fight between him and Stipe Miocic, who had knocked out Alistair Overeem a year prior. 

UFC 220 took place in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 20, 2018, in front of over 16,000 people at the TD Garden, a far cry from five years earlier when Ngannou was homeless and sleeping in a Paris car park. Having recently signed an eight-fight deal with the UFC, Ngannou had his eyes on the main prize of becoming the best in the world. 

Such aspirations came a little too soon for Ngannou as Stipe Miocic won via unanimous decision in a contest which highlighted why the ‘Mixed’ in Mixed Martial Arts was so important. The scorecards weren’t even close, with all three judges scoring the contest in favor of the defending champion by a score of 50-44. Despite Ngannou’s explosive start to life in the UFC, it was clear that he had a lot of learning to do, and he went back to the drawing board. 

Getting Back On Track

Six months after his defeat to Stipe Miocic at UFC 220, Ngannou looked to get back to winning ways against an in-form Derrick Lewis, who had won seven of his last eight fights. The fight promised to deliver fireworks as both men were heavy-hitting knockout specialists. 

Unfortunately, the contest was a huge disappointment as both men failed to engage for much of the fight, with Lewis winning via a unanimous decision. Fans booed throughout, and Joe Rogan claimed it was the worst heavyweight he had ever seen. Ngannou had now lost two fights in a row, and his reputation and level of ‘hype’ took a hammering following the lackluster showing at UFC 226. 

Following the fight, UFC President Dana White criticized Ngannou’s attitude, claiming that both he and other people in the organization had recent interactions with Ngannou in the build-up to his fight with Lewis and noticed that he had developed a huge ego. The comments from Dana White didn’t go down well with Ngannou (understandably), and the pair’s relationship became strained. The defeat to Lewis meant Ngannou failed to get back on track to earn a second crack at the champion. The road to the title just became a lot longer, but one thing Ngannou was used to was overcoming obstacles, and compared to what had happened in the past, this was a drop in the ocean. 

With his stock arguably at an all-time low, Ngannou needed to bounce back in style, and he did. The gun-shy approach we had seen in the previous two fights seemed to be a distant memory as he devastatingly won his next four fights, all via finish. All four victories came by stoppage and were all against high-level opponents in Curtis Blaydes, Cain Velasquez, Junior dos Santos, and Jairzinho Rozenstruik. Even more impressive was that the four bouts had a combined total fight time of just two minutes and forty-two seconds – a little over half a round. 

Becoming UFC Champion

The path of destruction Ngannou went on between November 2018 and May 2020 earned him another shot at Stipe Miocic, who was still the UFC Heavyweight Champion following a trilogy with Daniel Cormier. 

The rematch with Miocic took place at UFC 260 on March 27, 2021, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The second fight between the pair was very different from the first, with Ngannou showing a willingness to wrestle and displaying patience on his feet, circling Miocic while waiting for openings. After a left high kick landed on the chin of the champion, Ngannou attempted a couple of takedowns and threw a flurry of punches at Miocic’s head as he had his back to Ngannou. In the second round, A left hand dropped Miocic, but he was saved from hitting the canvas by the fence of the Octagon. An uppercut and left hook from Ngannou then knocked out the greatest heavyweight of all time, and at the second time of asking, Ngannou became the UFC Heavyweight Champion. 

Ngannou’s first title defense came ten months later against his former teammate at the MMA Factory, Cyril Gane, who had recently become the interim UFC Heavyweight Champion following a victory over Derrick ‘The Black Beast’ Lewis at UFC 265. The challenger, Gane, went into the fight against Ngannou with an unblemished 10-0 MMA record. The Frenchman’s gameplan was evident from the first round as he tried to clinch with Ngannou whenever he got within striking range. 

Sporting a knee injury, Ngannou struggled to get the better of the stand-up exchanges and surprised those watching UFC 270 by taking Gane down to the canvas for the first time in his career. Ngannou had success after success with his takedowns and did enough to gain a unanimous decision victory. 

Options were aplenty for the UFC Heavyweight Champion, with his next opponent rumored to be either Jon Jones, who had recently announced his intention to move up to heavyweight, or a rematch with Stipe Miocic in what would be a rubber match to conclude their trilogy. 

Upon completing his eight-fight contract following his first title defense against Cyril Gane at UFC 27 on 22 January 2022, Ngannou and the UFC struggled to negotiate a new deal, leaving the heavyweight division in limbo.

Testing Free Agency

In the months that followed Francis Ngannou’s first title defense, the UFC struggled to tie him down to a new deal, and the relationship between the fighter and promotion became more and more strained, with Ngannou describing the UFC’s structure akin more to owning a fighter as opposed to a fighter being an independent contractor. Of further annoyance to Ngannou was the fact he lost a sponsorship deal with a cryptocurrency company due to the UFC’s deal with Crypto.com, which left Ngannou aggrieved due to being out of pocket (true geordie)

Ngannou made the decision not to re-sign with the UFC and indicated in various interviews that he would like to box, which was his dream before ever setting foot in the MMA Factory. His decision to leave the UFC caused shockwaves throughout the MMA world as he left the organization while being a champion. Some applauded him for his choice, while others felt that he was making the wrong call, a decision he would later come to regret. News on Ngannou’s next move was muted, and people began to speculate and question his decision even more so.

Ngannou didn’t take any of the above comments on board and set out to agree to his next move on his terms, irrespective of what his peers thought of his decisions. After holding talks with ONE Championship, Bare Knuckle FC, as well as with various boxing promoters, Ngannou announced in May 2023 that he had signed a deal with PFL and would work with the organization to plan and hold an event in Africa in 2024. The deal would also allow Ngannou to crossover into the boxing world in future, should he wish. 

Wish, he did, and his manifestations came true as a couple of months later it was announced that he would box Tyson Fury, the unbeaten WBC Heavyweight Champion, in Riyadh, on October 28 in Saudi Arabia. 

Boxing Match With Tyson Fury

The shock announcement of Ngannou’s fight with Tyson Fury drew criticism from both the MMA and boxing worlds. Most gave ‘The Predator’ no more than a puncher’s chance against the lineal heavyweight champion, Tyson Fury, and the bout was largely derided by the media as being a mismatch. The fight in Saudi Arabia came at a time when fight fans had become accustomed to crossover fights, and with the recent Misfits and DAZN card featuring Dillon Danis and KSI being lackluster in terms of quality, the appetite for these kinds of events had begun to stifle. Enter Francis Ngannou. 

After a somewhat mooted build-up, partly due to the media not showing too much interest in the fight, the show on October 28 in Riyadh ended up being one for the history books. The fight began with Fury throwing a hail-mary, which narrowly missed Ngannou before the WBC Champion landed a couple of stiff jabs. Despite having never boxed professionally before, Ngannou looked calm in the ring and adopted a stance that indicated he had some idea of what he was doing. 

Then, in the third, Ngannou knocked down Fury with a left hook, which left everybody in shock. After Fury got up, Ngannou remained patient and didn’t apply too much pressure but still won the round 10-8 due to the knockdown. After the first five rounds, Ngannou was up on most people’s scorecards and had taken everybody by surprise, probably even himself.

As the second half of the fight commenced, Fury improved briefly but struggled to land any power shots on Ngannou, and the MMA fighter, as the case in the previous five rounds, was causing the most damage. Typically, in his previous fights, Fury had been the bigger and stronger man, using this to his advantage in the clinch, particularly during his trilogy with Deontay Wilder. Ngannou’s years of MMA training meant he was easily able to handle this. As the final round began, it seemed as though Fury would need a knockout to avoid being on the receiving end of the biggest upsets in combat sports history. 

Surprisingly, Fury stayed patient in the final three minutes, and as the final bell rang, there was a feeling that the real-life Rocky Balboa story just happened. But it’s boxing, after all, and as we’ve seen many times before, there is no such thing as a foregone conclusion when predicting judges’ scorecards. They read 95-94 Ngannou, 96-93 Fury, 95-94 Fury.

A moral victory for Ngannou? Undoubtedly. A robbery? Debatable. Regardless of the result, the stock of Francis Ngannou is now at an all-time high thanks to his heroic feat, where he came a cat’s whisker away from defeating arguably the best heavyweight boxer of this generation. 

Ngannou vs. Joshua

Not content on pressing pause on his boxing endeavor, Ngannou seeked another high profile fight. Less than three months after his fight with Tyson Fury, it was announced that his next opponent would be the former two-time world heavyweight champion, Anthony Joshua. The event, dubbed ‘Knockout Chaos’ also took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Many fancied Ngannou’s chances against Joshua given that he put up such a valiant performance against Tyson Fury. Joshua was viewed as an easier opponent to hit, and considering that Ngannou knocked Fury to the canvas, it was generally considered that an upset could be on the cards. Unfortunately for the Cameroonian, the fight did not go his way as Anthony Joshua asserted his dominance from the get go, jabbing away at Ngannou before flooring him in the first round. Another knockown shortly followed, and in round two, Joshua knocked out ‘The Predator’ with a crisp right hand.

Where does Ngannou go from here? Well, He has a contract with PFL, who recently acquired Bellator. After Renan Ferreira knocked out Ryan Bader after just twenty-one seconds of the first round in the recent ‘PFL vs. Bellator’ event, Ngannou will make his return to MMA to face the Brazilian later in 2024. It’s been a busy twelve months for Ngannou and a very fruitful one, financially – He has added eight figures to his bank account in recent months after his two super-fights in boxing. Fumbled the bag? More like he took all the bags.