23, January 2022
Enfin!! Ngannou holds off Frenchman Gane to retain heavyweight UFC title 0
Cameroonian fighter Francis Ngannou, known as ‘The Predator’, scored a decision victory over Frenchman ‘Bon Gamin’ Ciryl Gane to hold on to his heavyweight UFC 270 title on Saturday night.
In a surprising turn of events, Ngannou, the UFC’s king of the fast knockout, saved his heavyweight championship with his grappling game after dropping the first two rounds.
The Las Vegas-based fighter used takedowns and top control over the final three rounds to eke out a unanimous decision at Honda Center in Anaheim, California, and retain his belt.
The judges’ scores were 48-47, 48-47, and 49-46 to mark the first decision victory of Ngannou’s career.
Saturday’s fixture offered an intriguing match-up, the two fighters having previously trained together in Paris – Ngannou was once a homeless immigrant in the French capital – before pursuing their careers in the US.
Gane, a kickboxer, used body kicks over the first two rounds to keep Ngannou from getting untracked. In the third, he used a huge slam to alter the fight, and followed it with a judo throw later in the round.
In the fourth round, Ngannou used another takedown to stymie Gane. In the fifth, Gane scored a takedown, but Ngannou switched position and used top control over the rest of the round to seal the fight.
Trilogy fight
The evening’s co-feature bout was the rare case where a trilogy fight was not the concluding matchup between a pair of fighters.
In a sensational bout, Deiveson Figueiredo of Brazil won a razor-thin affair with Tijuana’s Brandon Moreno to regain the UFC flyweight title. The judges’ scores were 48-47 across the board for a unanimous decision.
The bout was a 25-minute whirlwind, Moreno (19-6-2) landed more often, but Figueiredo (21-2-1) landed harder shots and scored more knockdowns, including one in a frantic and close final round that very well may have spelled the difference on the scorecards.
With the victory, the duo are now tied at 1-1-1. Their first bout at UFC 256 ended with Figueiredo retaining the championship via majority draw. Moreno took the title via third-round submission at UFC 263.
With the win in the third fight, Figueiredo became the first two-time UFC flyweight champion with the win. He indicated after the fight he was willing to give Moreno a fourth-right rematch to settle things.
Source: Reuters
29, January 2022
UFC heavyweight World Champion Francis Ngannou, pride of Cameroon 0
Francis Ngannou is still the UFC heavyweight world champion.
The Cameroonian beat Frenchman Cyril Gane on January 22 in California to defend his world title in the prestigious mixed martial arts league.
“I was the champion, I am the champion, I remain the champion. Whatever you say, at the end of the day, I’m the boss, I proved it tonight,” he said proudly after the fight.
But his story started far away, with incredible odds. Ngannou forever dreamt of boxing while growing up in poverty in Cameroon.
In 2012, he attempted to cross the Mediterranean seven times, spending two months in a prison in Spain before reaching Paris with nothing.
Ten years later, he lives in a villa in Los Angeles and earns almost 500,000 euros per fight.
His native village of Batié, in western Cameroon, lives in awe of his extraordinary career.
According to Rodrigue Ngannou, his uncle, he draws strength from his ancestral land, where he often returns.
“This is where Francis Nganonou drank water to be stronger like you see here, to grow 1.95m tall. It’s because he drank water from this spring that he is 1.95m tall and stronger, as you see ” he said.
Like many young people in Cameroon, he worked to pay for school, collecting and loading sand into trucks.
Ngannou built a training centre in his village in 2019. More than that, he gives them a chance to believe in themselves.
Batié eagerly waits for another visit from their idol. Last May, after he first won the title, more than 2,000 came to welcome him home.
Source: Africa News