“His knee buckled funny,” Francis Ngannou’s head coach describes the circumstances of his brutal knee injury prior to UFC 270
Follow Us
Francis Ngannou - Eric Nicksick
UFC Heavyweight Champion Francis Ngannou didn’t only shut his doubters but also those people who thought of him as more of a powerhouse puncher and less of a technician ahead of UFC 270 in his fight against Ciryl Gane. To the world’s surprise, Ngannou dominated Gane in the third and championship rounds not on the feet, but with his wrestling. This was the first decisive victory by Ngannou who was coming off a 100% finish rate and wanted to rise from the betting odds that had him as the underdog and favoured Gane to win.
However, the fight wasn’t as easy for Ngannou to win, considering he did his 100% but didn’t come out 100% healthy going into the fight. Ngannou had an ACL tear on one of both his knees. Ngannou then said in his octagon interview that he couldn’t see himself retreat and wanted to prove something inside the cage.
Francis Ngannou got checked by UFC’s Performance Institute to discover shocking reports
Ngannou’s head coach, and also head coach of Xtreme Couture training centre, Eric Nicksick talked about how Ngannou’s injury took place coming into UFC 270, and more on The MMA Fighting’s The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani.
“It was 3 and a half weeks ago I believe, it was during sparring,” said Nicksick. “Ali [Abdelaziz, Athlete Manager] had a big heavyweight come in town, he was a guy that was going to be on contenders, we worked with him on Monday, on more of a grappling day, he was a great training partner and had a great look on Francis and on Tuesday Francis was doing Southpaw. Francis was kind of pissing him up a little bit, I could tell the guy was getting anxious, so the guy shot a very very low single.“
“It wasn’t like him trying to be mean or anything like that…but it was very low, went on Francis’ lead leg which was his right leg being a southpaw and with the shin pads and knee pad on, his knee kind of buckled funny… but… we actually finished up the rounds and we went to the PI and got looked at the next day, he had an MRI and it was a full MCL tear and he had damage to the ACL as well…“ said Nicksick.
What do you make of Ngannou’s injury story? Do you think it was fair to fight was Ngannou considering the intensity of the injury? Or are you past it anyway since Ngannou has won the fight now? What do you think is next for Ngannou, another title defence, or debut in professional boxing?
Stay Updated!
Abhai Singh Tanwar
(1386 Articles Published)