{"id":268420,"date":"2018-01-22T08:27:48","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T16:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=268420"},"modified":"2018-01-22T08:29:51","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T16:29:51","slug":"francis-ngannou-explained-learned-loss-stipe-miocic-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/francis-ngannou\/francis-ngannou-explained-learned-loss-stipe-miocic-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Francis Ngannou explains what he learned from loss to Stipe Miocic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday night, in the main event of the exciting UFC 220, hulking French-Cameroonian knockout artist Francis Ngannou lumbered into the cage with the goal of defeating Stipe Miocic and winning the UFC heavyweight title. In the end, however, the massively hyped Ngannou was\u00a0<\/span>outclassed by the champion<\/a>, whose cardio, pressure and wrestling were simply too much to deal with.<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s back to the drawing board for the undeniably talented Ngannou, who has been studying MMA for just four years. Though he certainly has some holes in his game that need filling, it seems he\u2019s keen to learn from this loss, and use it as fuel for his continued evolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in this sport only four years, and I know I\u2019ll keep learning and improving,\u201d Ngannou said at the UFC 220 post-fight press conference (h\/t MMAJunkie.com<\/a>). \u201cWhat happened tonight was the last step for me to learn about this sport, because it\u2019s the only thing I\u2019ve never faced \u2013 a five-round fight, and how to deal with it. I made a mistake, and that will not happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI came here today to win the fight,\u201d he continued. \u201cI just discovered a new part [of the game] that I was ignorant about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is I underestimated my opponent, and I went too hard in the first round, and he was tougher than I thought. So [Miocic] resisted, and he put together a better game plan than me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to keep improving and come back stronger than I was,\u201d Ngannou concluded. \u201cI learned more [in this fight] than I did in the past four years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ngannou made similar claims in a post-fight statement<\/a> on Twitter.<\/p>\n

\n

Unfortunately it didn’t go on my way last night but I learned some different aspects of this sport and I’ll come back stronger! TRUST ME ☝️ . #UFC220<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Francis NGannou (@francis_ngannou) January 21, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n