In March of this year, former UFC champion Francis Ngannou had the opportunity to fight his second fight in professional boxing. And the opponent was eminent: Anthony Joshua. Against the background of a very close fight with Tyson Fury a few months earlier, Ngannou was expected to at least compete closely.
As a result, Francis was knocked out in the second round, and before that, Joshua knocked down the Cameroonian twice. It must be said that Ngannou has a strong jaw, so dropping him is not an easy task. Then the Predator explained the defeat in a very strange way: “I remember trying to warm up in the locker room, but nothing worked. I fell asleep while walking. I was sweating, but at the same time I wanted to sleep. But I guess some of the people I’ve fought, some of the people I’ve beaten have felt this before, but this is essentially the first time I’ve experienced this. That’s why I took a couple of days off and took some time for myself. Obviously, I needed to understand everything that happened during the fight. Hats off to my team because they did a great job. I think I was the only one who didn’t execute the plan correctly and maybe I didn’t feel entirely comfortable. I was the only one who didn’t show up in the arena that night, let’s put it that way.”
Fight against Francis Ngannou and Anthony Joshua
Photo: Richard Pelham/Getty Images
Six months have passed since then and Ngannou has already managed to announce his return to MMA: he will fight Renan Ferreira in the PFL tournament in October. However, instead of focusing entirely on preparing for his debut in his new promotion, Ngannou decided to get involved in conspiracy theories and research his fight with Joshua.
At first, Francis criticized the technical aspects and hinted at the betrayal of the organizers, but then he decided that the cause of all the problems in the fight was the water: “It all started on press days. They called me once, I left the room, arrived and there was still nothing ready. And this happened more than once. We had to wait hours for some events and conferences. It was mentally exhausting and physically exhausting. There were also strange things on the day of the fight. We arrived at the arena at 10:45 pm and the producer came to us and told us that the broadcast was delayed and the fight would start at about 1:45. I sat in the locker room, waited, got hot, drank water and almost fell asleep. Around 1:30 I saw Joshua arrive at the stadium. I couldn’t arrive at this time if the fight was expected at 1 am or 1:45, as I was told.
The fight started at four o’clock. I felt bad all the time. In the first round I missed a punch, but it was weak and muffled by my glove. However, as soon as I found myself in the corner and heard the voices of my seconds… I looked at them and saw that they were close, but the voices seemed to be coming from a distance of several kilometers. In my opinion, it’s all about water. The organizers brought water there. It was a big mistake on my part to drink it… But when you wait a long time in the locker room, a person comes to do a urine test, or you start to get hot and sweaty, you will inevitably drink water. … I know many fighters who say that they always bring water and do not drink what the organizers provide them. And they don’t even box at the highest level… I didn’t imagine that in boxing you could find such betrayal.”
Ngannou has not yet given up hope of fighting Jones:
‘Money is everything’: Will Ngannou-Jones superfight take place in Saudi Arabia?
As for the organization, this was not the first boxing match for Ngannou in Saudi Arabia. Before the fight with Fury there were no problems, although Francis did not say whether he brought water with him that time. It is strange that the fight with Tyson is not mentioned at all as a comparison. Well, the timing of the PFL star was also very strange. Six months after the fight, both fighters already went their separate ways, both have new fights, no rematch is planned.
In general, in any kind of martial arts there are practically no cases when a fighter actually says that he was poisoned. Complaints about the organization or criticism of the host match are common, but poisoning is clearly a more weighty accusation. This is extremely rare and, as a rule, these assumptions are voiced by people from the athlete’s team or even someone from outside.
For example, in April 2004, Vladimir Klitschko lost by knockout to Lamon Brewster, and a few days later, sources of information began to appear that before the fight, something was mixed into the boxer’s water. BoxingScene, citing a member of Klitschko’s team, reported that video footage from the locker room showed an unknown person doing something with the water that the athlete then drank. Later, doctors confirmed that Vladimir had high blood pressure and high blood sugar levels.
“Even after the fight, Vladimir could not speak and it seemed that he was under the influence of a tranquilizer. He looked as if he was almost completely paralyzed,” one of the representatives of his team described Klitschko’s state of health, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Vladimir Klitschko
Photo: Doug Benc/Getty Images
And when Fedor Emelianenko lost for the first time to Ryan Bader, Oleg Taktarov put forward a version of the reason for the failure of the Last Emperor: “It was obvious that Fedor was feeling unwell or was poisoned. He was not there. I had such a case in practice when the whole team was poisoned. We need to monitor his health, monitor his blood.”
Of course, one should be as careful as possible with poisoning. Of course, the level of organization is growing every year, promotions are trying to prevent accidents. They still go unnoticed, for example, in the last two years in UFC Nikita Krylov, Armen Petrosyan and Victoria Dudakova have suffered poisoning. Petrosyan’s coach Rasul Magomedaliev also put forward the version that his ward was deliberately poisoned, but the fighter himself did not blame anyone.
Ngannou, of course, should focus on the upcoming fight and not on the affairs of the past few days. Moreover, it is interesting how they will react to criticism in Saudi Arabia. Turki Al ash-Sheikh himself is clearly very jealous of any public statements that affect him in one way or another. So this situation may well be negative for Ngannou.
