{"id":295856,"date":"2018-12-23T13:35:39","date_gmt":"2018-12-23T21:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=295856"},"modified":"2018-12-23T16:43:53","modified_gmt":"2018-12-24T00:43:53","slug":"cain-velasquez-sends-christmas-message-to-upcoming-opponent-francis-ngannou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/cain-velasquez-sends-christmas-message-to-upcoming-opponent-francis-ngannou\/","title":{"rendered":"Cain Velasquez sends Christmas message to upcoming opponent Francis Ngannou"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former UFC heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez is officially scheduled to return to the Octagon in the New Year. The heavyweight star is booked for a showdown with recent heavyweight title challenger Francis Ngannou, which will headline the UFC&#8217;s return to Phoenix on February 17.<\/p>\n<p>While Cain Velasquez and Francis Ngannou are certain to fight each other with the ferocity of sworn enemies, it&#8217;s clear that there&#8217;s not actually any bad blood between them. In fact, the former champion Velasquez recently took to Twitter to let Ngannou know that his plane ticket to Phoenix is a Christmas present.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"es\" dir=\"ltr\">Hey <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/francis_ngannou?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@francis_ngannou<\/a> , I got you a trip to Phoenix for Xmas! Joyeux Noel! Y a toda la raza le regalo una pelea gratis por <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/espn?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@espn<\/a> el 17 de febrero. \u00a1Feliz Navidad a todos!<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Cain Velasquez (@cainmma) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cainmma\/status\/1076906085045452800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 23, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hey [Francis Ngannou]\u00a0I got you a trip to Phoenix for Xmas,&#8221; Cain Velasquez said in English, before switching to French for Ngannou&#8217;s benefit. &#8220;Joyeux Noel!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cain Velasquez has not fought since UFC 200, in July of 2016, when he bludgeoned Travis Browne to a first-round TKO win. That being said, he is still widely considered one of the best heavyweights ever \u2014 if not the best outright.<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of his illustrious career, he&#8217;s captured the UFC heavyweight title twice, and defeated stars like Junior dos Santos (twice), Antonio &#8216;Bigfoot&#8217; Silva (twice), Brock Lesnar, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Ben Rothwell and Cheick Kongo. The former champion is currently a strong 14-2 overall.<\/p>\n<p>Francis Ngannou, meanwhile, recently bounced back from back-to-back decision losses to Derrick Lewis and Stipe Miocic with a first-round defeat of Curtis Blaydes. He&#8217;s 12-3 in sum.<\/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 12\/23\/2018.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former UFC heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez is officially scheduled to return to the Octagon in the New Year. The heavyweight star is booked for a showdown with recent heavyweight title challenger Francis Ngannou, which will headline the UFC&#8217;s return to Phoenix on February 17. While Cain Velasquez and Francis Ngannou are certain to fight each [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54459,"featured_media":290018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10141,39610],"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>Cain Velasquez sends Christmas message to upcoming opponent Francis Ngannou | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez sends a Christmas message to Francis Ngannou, who he&#039;s set to meet in the UFC Phoenix main event.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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