Israel Adesanya is standing up for fellow former UFC champion Francis Ngannou. Adesanya reinforced Ngannou’s significance to the UFC amid cases where the promotion appeared to scrub mentions of the former heavyweight champ.
“You can never erase Francis’ history from the UFC,” Adesanya told ESPN while looking straight into the camera ahead of UFC 305 in Perth, Australia on Saturday. “It’s part of history.”
The UFC has repeatedly discredited Ngannou since he vacated his UFC heavyweight title in January 2023 in favor of signing a flexible deal with the Professional Fighters League that allowed him to box Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
The most recent perceived example of the UFC diminishing Ngannou came during the “UFC 305 Countdown” show. Adesanya named himself, Ngannou and Kamaru Usman as the UFC’s original three African kings recently at a press conference. The countdown show used the press conference clip but edited out Ngannou’s name.
It’s unclear if Adesanya was referring to that specific instance, but he’s noticed an effort to tarnish Ngannou’s success.
“We need to fix this,” Adesanya said. “I don’t like that. I don’t like the fact we’re trying to cut out a really important part of history. It’s silly. It’s really silly but we’ll fix that. That’s for later on. We’ll fix that.”
During a UFC Fight Night at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, an on-screen graphic labeled Tafon Nchukwi as the “only Cameroonian fighter in UFC history.” Not only is this untrue, but Ngannou’s UFC debut predated Nchukwi’s by exactly five years.
UFC president Dana White has repeatedly besmirched Ngannou by claiming he did not want to fight current heavyweight champ Jon Jones. Ngannou said he declined a new UFC contract due to the promotion’s unwillingness to negotiate terms for sponsorships, health insurance and fighter advocacy.
Adesanya seems keen on rectifying the situation regarding Ngannou, but he must first turn his attention to Saturday. Adesanya looks to win the UFC middleweight title for a third time by defeating reigning champion Dricus du Plessis.
