Dana White skips UFC 270 post-fight press conference as doubts loom heavily over Francis Ngannou’s future
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Dana White(L), Francis Ngannou(R)
UFC President Dana White, as per reports, decided to skip the UFC 270 post-fight press conference following Francis Ngannou’s title defense win over Ciryl Gane.
This comes on top of the failed negotiations between the UFC and Francis Ngannou to retain the heavyweight champion with the promotion and as the contract stands, ‘The Predator’ is free to do as he pleases and his current aim is to try his hand at boxing and has already an opponent in mind by the name of Tyson Fury.
Even Fury has challenged Ngannou to take him on when he tweeted on a mock-up poster of himself and Ngannou saying, “Who would like to see me fight this beast, boxing rules @ufc gloves?”
With the already bad blood between fighter and promotion, Dana White poured more fuel to the fire by not putting the belt around Ngannou, like he normally does, after the decision was announced.
There seems to be no answer as of yet as to why Dana White decided to snub his routine tradition but we still remain to guess as White even refused to show up for the post-fight presser.
Ngannou, however, still has one more fight due to a championship clause wherein the deal is extended due to the champion still holding the belt so he is granted another fight for his title defense.
Dana White refuses to put the belt around Francis Ngannou’s waist
It’s always been a tradition in the UFC wherein when a new champion is crowned or an already named champion continues to defend his title, at the end of the fight, UFC President Dana White makes his appearance in the octagon and has the honor of placing the belt around the waist of the victorious fighter and that tradition has always stood until now.
After Francis Ngannou’s unanimous decision victory over Ciryl Gane at UFC 270, Dana White was nowhere to be found to place the belt around the French-Cameroonian’s waist.
Instead, it was Mick Maynard, one of the matchmakers of the UFC who placed the heavyweight belt around Ngannou’s waist.
In the post-fight press conference, Ngannou was asked about White not carrying out his usual tradition to which he replied, “I don’t know, you have to ask him. I did not have anything to do about that. I think that was their decision. I’m about to ask about that too.”
With all this taking place it’s become quite clear that the contract disputes between the two parties are worse than ever and we might see Francis Ngannou‘s time at the UFC come to an end soon.
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Nimish Ganapathy
(135 Articles Published)