Ciryl Gane, Jon Jones and Francis Ngannou
UFC Heavyweight champ Francis Ngannou named the best MMA striker right now
Francis Ngannou is easily the scariest fighter in the world right now. Known for his out of the world knockout power, ‘The Predator’ won the heavyweight belt in March 2021 after flattening out consensus heavyweight GOAT Stipe Miocic.
He is now set to defend his belt for the first time, against the interim HW champ Ciryl Gane at UFC 270.
In a recent interview he posted on his own YouTube channel, Ngannou was asked – who he considered the best striker in all of MMA. The Cameroonian named his potential HW rival and light-heavyweight great Jon Jones.
While also crediting Gane for his kickboxing style striking, Ngannou was quoted as saying:
“If I’m about to say the best striker for MMA striking, it would still be Jon Jones. But if we go kickboxing style, then I think it will be Ciryl [Gane]. But for MMA striking, I would give it to Jon Jones. Because, like, with his elbow and all this stuff that he does.. the oblique kick, all those stuff. For MMA, is the perfect striking.” [via BJPenn.com]
It looks like Francis Ngannou’s upcoming fight against Ciryl Gane might come along with a lot of bad blood due to one man – Fernand Lopez. Lopez is the former coach of Ngannou and Gane’s current.
In a recent revelation on his YouTube channel, Ngannou hit out at Lopez, calling him evil:
“They sent me something like, where his coach Fernand said I told [UFC matchmaker] Mick Maynard that Ciryl is good but not that good or something like that.
“I’m like, ‘Man, this is nasty,’ this is not a fair game anymore – it’s not a fair game anymore.
“I understand this position is not; you want to take everything, you want to destroy somebody.
“But to go after him like that, associate other people; I mean, I think this is evil – but I know the man, and I know how it processed.” [via The Mirror]
It is also worth noting that, Ngannou has just one fight left in his UFC contract.
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