{"id":265062,"date":"2017-12-05T11:29:33","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T19:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=265062"},"modified":"2017-12-05T11:30:39","modified_gmt":"2017-12-05T19:30:39","slug":"francis-ngannou-hopes-ko-stipe-miocic-will-earn-dream-fight-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/francis-ngannou\/francis-ngannou-hopes-ko-stipe-miocic-will-earn-dream-fight-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Francis Ngannou hopes KO of Stipe Miocic will earn him his &#8220;dream&#8221; fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Having knocked Alistair Overeem&#8217;s head into orbit in the co-main event of last Saturday&#8217;s stacked UFC 218 card, French-Cameroonian slugger Francis Ngannou is now the number one contender in the perilous UFC heavyweight division. He is expected to battle the division&#8217;s apex predator, Stipe Miocic, sometime in the next few months \u2013 perhaps even <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/francis-ngannou\/video-dana-white-date-stipe-miocic-francis-ngannou\/\">as soon as UFC 220<\/a>, which goes down on January 20 in Boston.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Whenever Ngannou&#8217;s fight with Miocic occurs, he&#8217;s confident that he&#8217;ll come out on top \u2013 and that the judges won&#8217;t be needed.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI expect a finish,&#8221; Ngannou told <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/topturtlemma\/episode-94-francis-ngannou-bonus-episode\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Top Turtle MMA<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flocombat.com\/articles\/6054408-francis-ngannou-plans-to-ko-stipe-miocic-dream-fight-with-brock-lesnar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FloCombat<\/a>) this week. &#8220;Because he\u2019ll probably try a takedown, it might be a submission, but I\u2019ll always predict a KO.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">If Ngannou can pull off a title-winning finish of Miocic, he hopes it&#8217;ll open the door for his dream fight: a showdown with Brock Lesnar, which would surely shake the foundations of whatever arena it occurred in.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cMy dream? I would like to see a match between me and Brock Lesnar,&#8221; Ngannou said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Ngannou then delved into the appeal of a potential collision with Lesnar.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cYou know, two big dudes,\u201d he said. \u201cI like that matchup. I\u2019m excited for that kind of matchup\u2026 I want to see that match.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cHe\u2019s big and huge, but he\u2019s not stronger than me,\u201d he continued. \u201c[I\u2019m] the more powerful guy and I\u2019m also a [more] talented guy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With his win over Overeem, Ngannou rocketed to 6-0 in the UFC. In this span, he\u2019s dished out public executions of Luis Henrique, Curtis Blaydes, Bojan Mihajlovic, Anthony Hamilton, Andrei Arlovski, and of course, Overeem. The hulking heavyweight\u2019s overall record now stands at 11-1.<\/p>\n<p>Lesnar, meanwhile, has been sidelined by USADA, having failed a drug test after his UFC 200 battle with Mark Hunt. Given that he&#8217;s now 40 years old, his battling the surging Francis Ngannou seems like an unlikely development, but let&#8217;s all keep our fingers crossed anyway.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>BJPenn.com<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>\u00a0on 5\/12\/2017.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Having knocked Alistair Overeem&#8217;s head into orbit in the co-main event of last Saturday&#8217;s stacked UFC 218 card, French-Cameroonian slugger Francis Ngannou is now the number one contender in the perilous UFC heavyweight division. He is expected to battle the division&#8217;s apex predator, Stipe Miocic, sometime in the next few months \u2013 perhaps even as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":250651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10646],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Francis Ngannou hopes KO of Stipe Miocic will earn him his &quot;dream&quot; fight | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/francis-ngannou\/francis-ngannou-hopes-ko-stipe-miocic-will-earn-dream-fight-1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Francis Ngannou hopes KO of Stipe Miocic will earn him his &quot;dream&quot; fight | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Having knocked Alistair Overeem&#8217;s head into orbit in the co-main event of last Saturday&#8217;s stacked UFC 218 card, French-Cameroonian slugger Francis Ngannou is now the number one contender in the perilous UFC heavyweight division. He is expected to battle the division&#8217;s apex predator, Stipe Miocic, sometime in the next few months \u2013 perhaps even as [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/francis-ngannou\/francis-ngannou-hopes-ko-stipe-miocic-will-earn-dream-fight-1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"| BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bjpenn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-12-05T19:29:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-12-05T19:30:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Francis-Ngannou-3.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"730\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"380\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Taylor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tom Taylor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/francis-ngannou\/francis-ngannou-hopes-ko-stipe-miocic-will-earn-dream-fight-1\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/francis-ngannou\/francis-ngannou-hopes-ko-stipe-miocic-will-earn-dream-fight-1\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Tom Taylor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#\/schema\/person\/e1a3f1e5a045aeaf5b59aa1549a06a87\"},\"headline\":\"Francis Ngannou hopes KO of Stipe Miocic will earn him his &#8220;dream&#8221; 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