Former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou reacted to his brutal, first-round KO win over Philipe Lins at MVP MMA: Rousey vs. Carano.
Ngannou was a massive favorite to knock Lins out, and he did just that, catching the Brazilian on the right spot and putting him out cold in the first round of their fight, which served as the feature bout on the MVP MMA main card. For Ngannou, it was a huge win for him as he took home $1.5 million in disclosed, pre-tax pay for the event. In addition, he won $100,000 for Performance of the Night, though he gifted it to Lins after the event as a sign of goodwill.
Francis Ngannou Reacts to KO Win
Taking to his social media following his massive knockout win, Ngannou posted a brief statement about his victory.
“It’s been a long 19 months, but we did it. Thank you all for the support #NgannouLins,” Ngannou wrote on Instagram.
As Ngannou noted in his post, this was his first MMA bout since he knocked out Renan Ferreira at the PFL Super Fights event in October 2024. After he left the UFC, Ngannou signed with the PFL, and he was supposed to be a big star for them. But he only ended up competing once in MMA for PFL, while also taking two boxing matches during his time away from the UFC.
Now that Ngannou has this big win over Lins back under his belt, it will be interesting to see if he can maintain a more consistent fighting schedule going forward. At 39, he’s not old by any means for heavyweight standards. But he needs to fight more often than once every 18 months, as he is one of the most exciting heavyweights in the sport today, and someone that fans love to see fight.
Francis Ngannou Calls Out Jon Jones
Following the win over Lins, Ngannou expressed interest in fighting Jon Jones, the UFC legend who is currently retired. This is a fight that UFC president Dana White always wanted to book inside the Octagon, but the UFC was never able to get the deal done. Now that Ngannou is done with the UFC for good, and Jones is hopeful that he can also get out of his UFC deal, MVP MMA will surely try to get Ngannou vs. Jones booked, as it would be an absolutely massive fight.
That being said, White has really no incentive to let Jones out of his UFC deal so he could go and fight Ngannou in MVP MMA on Netflix. Unless Jones paid a massive buyout to get out of his deal, then there’s no reason for White to let him out of his deal to go and get paid by Netflix. For the fans, it’s unfortunate because Ngannou vs. Jones would be an amazing heavyweight fight. But from a business perspective, you can understand where White is coming from, as his allegiance is to the TKO shareholders and UFC stakeholders, not to the fans, and certainly not to Jones and Ngannou.
Like HEAVY’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on HEAVY
The post Francis Ngannou Reacts to Knocking Out Philipe Lins appeared first on HEAVY.