The hurdle for Francis Ngannou was Renan Ferreira, who at 6-foot-8 stood there like an inferno of humanity glaring across the PFL cage at the man nobody aside from the cold betting public wanted to see lose. That’s where all thoughts had been concentrated for the last several months, and that’s as far into the future as Ngannou cared to look.
Everything else? It had to wait. The speculation of what might come next, the boxing ring or a continued run in MMA? Abstractions. Those thoughts belonged to another world. The comparisons to Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall, and talks of standing as the best heavyweight in the world? None of it on the radar. It could wait.
Grieving for his 15-month-old son, Kobe, who passed away in April?
Impossible. Impossible not to. But it had to wait.
There was something in the air that spoke to these depths as Ngannou openly wept after the knockout of Ferreira on Saturday. He couldn’t hold back all that was going on inside him. The stoic broke down. A dam burst from a titan’s heart, which everyone had watched him do his damndest to protect against. He hadn’t understood what it would mean to get through the hurdle that held him together. That distracted him from falling apart. That became a symbol of purpose, which he himself wasn’t sure what it meant. It all came out.
There are feel-good moments in the fight game, when underdogs shock the world for instance, yet sometimes it’s just good to feel. To share in a heavy thing that nobody should have to go through alone. The commentators couldn’t look each other in the eyes when it was done for fear of breaking up. Randy Couture, who has worked with Francis to round out his game, held on for dear life. To feel is to connect, after all, and the fight game lives that much closer to the margins of mortality.
It’s not a game at all. And it never has been.
The truth is, nobody was quite sure how the 38-year-old Ngannou would look in Riyadh, especially with him coming off a brutal knockout loss in the boxing ring against Anthony Joshua in March. Not even Francis knew what to expect.
The only thing Francis understood was that Ferreira was the center of the universe for the time being. He was the French-made fighter’s raison d’être, and the only thing that mattered. A gateway to the unknown. As one of the fight game’s great specimens, Ngannou was strong enough to hold it all at bay. Until Ferreira was dealt with.
There are feel-good moments in the fight game, when underdogs shock the world for instance, yet sometimes it’s just good to feel.
When Ngannou landed an early leg kick that sent Ferreira pogoing off center, everything snapped back to normal. Now it was just Ngannou the familiar heavyweight marvel, making somebody feel his power. Then it was a fight, and that’s all it was. Ferreira returned fire with a leg kick of his own, and off they went. Heavyweight roulette, between the lineal champion and a Brazilian sleeper for the PFL title. Now it was just two dudes sizing each other up, trying to knock each other out.
During the pandemic, Ngannou’s coach, Eric Nicksick, tricked Ngannou into becoming a better wrestler by doing away with the dreaded idea of “defensive wrestling,” the thing he needed to work on the most coming out of his first fight with Stipe Miocic. Instead, they focused on “offensive wrestling,” because “we knew that he would pick up defensive wrestling as a result,” he told me.
When Ngannou slipped under a right hand and took Ferreira down along the fence, that wrestler emerged, and the fight swung in his favor. The triangle attempt from Ferreira? A temporary danger quickly defused. When Ngannou began landing heavy shots to the side of Ferreira’s head, there was no question where things were going. Ferreira wouldn’t be able to withstand the blows for long. And in a violent sequence, Ngannou punched his way through his greatest distraction. Referee Dan Miragliotta stepped in. That’s when the relief came.
Francis had won, if not the biggest fight of his life, then the most profound. The brave face he put on? It became braver still as the tears fell. His coaches cried with him, as did his family. Perhaps the bigger the man, the more striking the visual. But it was felt broadly, and it was understood. The scariest man on the planet, and the baddest man in the fight game, grieved for his son.
Then he said all he could, confined as he was to his earthbound power.
“I just want to say please, remember my son, Kobe. I dedicate this for him — this is for Kobe,” Ngannou said.
And with that he put one foot in front of the other as he walked out of the cage, ready to face whatever it is that comes next.
