The feud between Dana White and former UFC heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou has been going on for quite a while now. ‘The Predator’ left UFC after some contract disputes and joined PFL. Even after going through a heartbreaking incident when his 15-month-old son died, he still won against Renan Ferreira in his debut PFL HW bout. This has cemented his position again in the world of mixed martial arts.

However, the beef between UFC CEO and the heavyweight juggernaut does not seem to have diminished. On top of that, even though he achieved victory at PFL, the pay-per-view was not as big as it was at UFC.

Francis Ngannou wins PFL debut but loses to Dana White?

‘The People’s MMA’ account on X just gave some estimates and calculations of the pay-per-view revenue that was garnered from the recent PFL fight. They even compared the pay-per-view sales that the first Francis Ngannou vs. Stipe Miocic had acquired and it seems that there is a huge gap. The X post read, “Francis vs Ferreira sold about 10K PPV Buys. It generated approximately $500K in PPV revenue. Ferreira’s purse was $2M. Ngannou was guaranteed $8M for this fight and $12M for his next fight on top of a $2M signing bonus. For reference, Ngannou vs Stipe 1 had 350,000 PPV Buys.”

The first Miocic fight sold 35 times more PPVs than Ngannou’s PFL debut. On top of that, to rub more salt into this wound, UFC  308 witnessed the UFC head honcho revealing some lesser-known stuff regarding the newly crowned PFL Super Fights heavyweight champion. Apparently, according to the CEO, the heavyweight star is all about the money. The reason for his departure from UFC was his desire for “freedom,” which clashed with the UFC’s contractual terms.

The boss also took a jab and said that Ngannou was ducking from the fight against Jon Jones. He even brought up the aspect of the money that the former would have been paid if he fought against ‘Bones.’

Dana White reprimanded Francis Ngannou for not fighting Jones

During the UFC 308 press conference, the boss was asked about the recent win that Ngannou had against Ferreira at PFL. The head honcho did not shy away from complimenting the fighter and praised his achievement. However, he also snatched the opportunity to criticize the Cameroonian fighter as well. He stated, “I’m going to tell you what I think about Francis. Francis is all about money. Francis left because he knew that if he fought Jon Jones and didn’t win, it would hurt his chances of making the money he wanted to make. But realistically, his deal was bigger here. His deal was bigger here if he stayed in the UFC. I think I’ve told this story a million times.”

This is the second time that the boss has brought this topic up. Ngannou fought under UFC until 2022 when he last defended his heavyweight title against Ciryl Gane. After that, he switched to boxing reportedly earning around $30 million from two matches against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. He also mentioned how this helped him overcome his financial struggles, which refutes claims by the UFC CEO.

White also claimed that he did not like to do business with the heavyweight fighter although the boss did put on some good fights with the heavyweight under his banner. As for the money that Ngannou earned at PFL, he received a hefty paycheck of about $12 million. This is an amount that many UFC fighters still dream of achieving.

When news first broke about this deal Ngannou had with the PFL, White was skeptical. He did not think the promotion could sustain itself if it offered such a deal to a fighter who was above 35 years old and had a bad knee. “Based on what I know about the deal, which is not much, it makes no sense to me. You’re going to pay a guy not to fight for a year, and it’s already been like [14] months. He’s fought three times in the last three years,” White said after UFC Vegas 73. And the PPV numbers seem to indicate White was right about the PFL making a losing gamble with Ngannou.

So do you think he benefited by leaving UFC? What do you think about Dana White’s opinion of Francis Ngannou? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.