The fight triangle between the elite heavyweight beasts is still ongoing. Francis Ngannou was robbed of a giant clash with Junior dos Santos that assuredly would have propelled his career to the top if he managed to come out with a win against the former UFC heavyweight champ. Ever since then, he’s been very vocal about fights with both Alistair Overeem and belt holder Stipe Miocic. He’s up for either one still, but of course he’d rather fight the man with the strap. Not only does he like his chances to win, but Francis Ngannou thinks he could knock out Miocic.
“I already know everything [Stipe Miocic and Alistair Overeem] are able to do. Everyone knows all of their skills. They don’t know mine. They’re still discovering mine. I’m bringing a surprise in every fight. I’ve never had the opportunity to show my whole game yet. I knock Stipe out when we fight. I think under three rounds, I knock him out.”
https://twitter.com/francis_ngannou/status/910940459400171521
“It’s not clear right now [who I’ll fight next]. I want Stipe, but they are also talking about Overeem. I’ll probably fight either [UFC 218] on Dec. 2 in Detroit or [UFC 219] on Dec. 30 in Las Vegas. I’d prefer to fight in Detroit just because it’s 28 days sooner. I had a fight this month and it didn’t happen, so I’m just waiting. It sucks.” — Francis Ngannou speaking to ESPN.
Everyone seems ready to fight each other, but maybe Stipe Miocic is waiting to see what ends up happening with Cain Velasquez. Either way, there’s not a lot of big fights in the pipe aside from the super stacked UFC 217 in November, which will surely be a warm-up for an end-of-the-year extravaganza fight card like they did last year. Francis Ngannou against either Overeem or Miocic would be a great edition to either UFC 218 or UFC 219.
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 9/26/2017.