Post UFC 295, Dana White Accused of Stalling Jon Jones vs. Francis Ngannou in Co-Promotion With PFL Despite Several Trials

Kamaru Usman may be regarded as the UFC’s ‘Nigerian Nightmare’ but the real nightmare for UFC CEO Dana White seems to be the fact that former UFC heavyweight champ Francis Ngannou has moved to the PFL. While Ngannou was in the UFC, he was knocking out big names left right, and center. It seemed like he had a great future in the UFC. But, after failed contract negotiations, Ngannou decided to move to the PFL.

While it may not be the case, some may say that the UFC CEO is still raw about it. White has worked hard to promote and elevate the UFC – and has done so beautifully. However, a cross-promotion fight or co-promoting with competitors is not something that will fly with him and that is something he cleared up at a recent press conference. However, the UFC fans seemed perturbed by this and called out White.

Dana White loses his cool over co-promoting Jones vs. Ngannou with PFL

To date, the biggest name in the sport of MMA is the UFC. However, there are other big players in the market now as well. For example, the PFL has made some really big signings, namely former UFC champ Francis Ngannou. Ngannou was supposed to fight the returning UFC legend, Jon Jones. However, owing to some dispute, Ngannou moved to the PFL and the money fight didn’t happen.

At a recent press conference, White was asked if he would be open to co-promoting the big fight – Francis Ngannou vs. Jon Jones, with the PFL. White seemed to be put off immediately and criticized the reporter for asking the question. He labeled the question as ‘dumb’ and asked the reporter for a good reason for him to do that. The video of this verbal altercation has been going viral on Instagram after ‘MMAJunkie’ shared it.

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While the fans do want to see Ngannou and Jones finally go at it in the Octagon, unless White sees some incentive, it really doesn’t seem feasible at this point. White has his reasons, given the fact that the PFL is a direct competitor of the UFC. In fact, some people are saying that the UFC CEO might be stalling the fight, despite the PFL reaching out for the same. The fans didn’t take this well and joined the comment section to share their thoughts.

Fans reprimand White as he rules out the possibility of a cross-promotion fight

The fans were obviously quite disappointed when they learned of White’s stance on co-promoting a fight between Jon Jones and Francis Ngannou. The world had been waiting for this fight to happen and now that Ngannou is in the PFL, White doesn’t want anything to do with it. But now that White has made his stance on this clear, fans heavily criticized him in the comment section of the post.

“Dana knows it’s not a stupid question, that’s why he’s mad, lol.” said one UFC fan as another joined him saying “Dana flip flops constantly it’s actually so disrespectful Francis was right to leave“. One fan turned White’s comments on him and said, “Dana white wins the dumb response of the night“. 

One person seemed to think that White still hadn’t moved on from the fact that Ngannou had left the UFC to go to the PFL. “Dana still mad ngannou owns pfl” he said, as another fan joined him saying, “I hope they keep bringing up Francis just to piss him off.“.

However, some fans did seem to agree with White on this. “Dana’s right. Why tf would he promote his competitors? It’s stupid lol.” said one fan another commented saying, “He has a point tho, he tried to make the fight while they were both in the UFC it fell through,now you telling him try make the fight while Francis is in a whole other promotion. That would just further complicate things.” One fan simply agreed with the UFC CEO and said, “I agree boss“.

A few days earlier, Ngannou had nominated himself to fight Stipe Miocic in place of Jones, when the UFC heavyweight champ had to pull out of the UFC 295 title defense fight after suffering an injury while sparring. But now it seems that those doors might be closed for Ngannou. Will White change his stance? Will the world ever get to witness this super-fight?

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