Former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou could be eyeing an MMA return for his next bout.
After temporarily leaving the MMA cage to fight two professional boxing matches against lineal heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury and former unified heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua, Francis Ngannou is expected to return to the mixed martial arts cage for his next fight.
The Predator will fight Renan Fereira in his PFL return. Pereira defeated PFL heavyweight champion Ryan Bader at the PFL vs Bellator PPV event held in Riyadh last February. Ngannou’s promotion, The Professional Fighters’ League, announced before the event that the winner would be Ngannou’s next opponent.
Ngannou last fought in a mixed martial arts cage at UFC 270 on January 22, 2022 when he defeated Cyril Gane via unanimous decision to retain the UFC heavyweight title. However, the title was vacated after Francis’ UFC contract expired.
Last May, Ngannou signed a contract with th Professional Fighters League. But instead of joining the rest of the roster, he was assigned to the company’s Super Fight division where he was allowed to take offers for boxing bouts. And so instead of fighting in the PFL last year, he chose two big money bouts in boxing against Fury and Joshua.
Ngannou gave Fury all that he could handle during their October 28, 2023 bout in Riyadh and took him to a split decision. Then last month, The Predator fought Joshua, also in Riyadh, and suffered a brutal second round knockout loss.
The Joshua loss was the first time that Ngannou has been knocked out in his combat sports career. It proved that there are levels to boxing and nobody, not even a devastating power puncher like Ngannou, can just step up and beat a boxing world champion who has dedicated most of his life to training in the sport.
Interestingly, Joshua was recently seen doing leg kicks while on light training, fueling speculations that he might be preparing for an MMA fight. Although the Joshua-Ngannou fight did not have a rematch clause, there are wild reports that perhaps AJ will give Francis his rematch but in an MMA setting.