“Just do the interim without sabotaging me,” Francis Ngannou opens up about his recent issues with UFC leading to the interim title fight at UFC 265

The UFC Heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou will be facing the interim Heavyweight champion, Ciryl Gane in a title unification fight at the main event of UFC 270. Ngannou doesn’t intend to stay out for a long period of time after winning the title against Stipe Miocic at UFC 260.

Now he is annoyed by the fact that to build the hype of interim title fight between Derrick Lewis and Ciryl Gane, the promotion displayed a bag image of him and the UFC promos suggested that ‘The Predator’ chosen to go on vacation rather than defending his title.

Talking about his recent dispute with UFC in his latest interview with Ariel Helwani for MMA Fighting, Francis Ngannou says, “The only issue is how — because on my end, I know that was the way to apply pressure — it didn’t seem right, I find it so awkward that it didn’t even bother me. I’m like, what’s going on? OK, let’s do it.”

“What bothers me is the fact that to promote that fight they were trying to discredit me and pretend, ‘If you want to go on vacation, keep yourself, and when you want to fight, we are here.’ No, I want to fight and I wasn’t on vacation. And they use a video from Embedded to play that game, to pretend to discredit me and show that I was on vacation.”

Ngannou continued, “That bothers me because that’s not right. I know that is not true, it’s just to discredit me, to control the narrative. I don’t have a problem if they want to do the interim, just do the interim without sabotaging me.” {h/t MMA Fighting}

Francis Ngannou believes he is lacking proper recognition in UFC

The UFC Heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou recently had some problems with the promotion and he believes even after becoming the champion, Ngannou is lacking proper recognition in UFC.

Ngannou added, “Honestly, that’s not the feeling that I have, I might be wrong, but I don’t feel that because in my opinion for right now, from what I’m seeing, the UFC is trying to discredit me. That’s what I know. And those promoting somebody cannot work together with discrediting him. You don’t do that to somebody that you want to promote.”

“What do I look for? First of all, I look for some respect, that’s to start. Then I look to get stuff right, I look to feel like I’m respected, to feel like they care at least. That’s it. I never asked for anything more than that. That would be enough for me. … I gained the position that I am at. I wasn’t nominated, I wasn’t assigned to be here, I earned it. So that means I deserve a little bit of respect, just a little bit. I’m not a big deal, just a little famous, that’s it.“

Also Read: “It is not scaring me,” Ciryl Gane does not fear Francis Ngannou’s power ahead of his fight at UFC 270.