Francis Ngannou made a triumphant return to combined martial arts with a first-round knockout of Renan Ferreira in Riyadh.
After his high-profile transition to boxing with heavyweight bouts in opposition to Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, the 38-year-old Cameroonian returned to the cage for the Skilled Fighters League (PFL) occasion dubbed “Battle Of The Giants”.
After some early heavy kicks from each fighters Ngannou, who hadn’t had a combined martial arts battle since January 2022, took the battle to the mat and ultimately landed a sequence of bludgeoning punches to finish Ferreira with 88 seconds left within the first spherical.
A tearful Ngannou devoted his victory to the reminiscence of his 15-month-old son, Kobe, whose loss of life was introduced in April of this 12 months.
“I only did this fight because of him,” Ngannou mentioned. “I wanted to fight for him… I hope they can remember his name, because without Kobe, we wouldn’t be here tonight.”
The occasion broke with the PFL’s traditional format of a daily season and play-offs to placed on a sequence of “super fights” with belts at stake as Ngannou made his return to the game the place he made his identify after a foray into the world of boxing.
Ngannou’s rise from childhood poverty in Cameroon to the head of combined martial arts, the place he gained the UFC heavyweight title in March 2021, made him a massively in style determine and one of the vital sought-after free brokers in fight sports activities when his UFC contract expired.
Please use Chrome browser for a extra accessible video participant
Francis Ngannou says he felt like he fought Anthony Joshua together with his ‘hand-tied’ and divulges the names he needs to battle when he returns to boxing.
He went on to participate in profitable boxing matches in opposition to British heavyweights Fury and Joshua, each of which he misplaced, and his signing was an enormous coup for the PFL in its battle to compete with the UFC.
Within the night’s co-main occasion for the PFL Tremendous Fights ladies’s featherweight belt, Brazilians Cris Cyborg and Larissa Pacheco went to conflict over 5 rounds, with the vastly skilled Cyborg rising victorious through unanimous choice.
Sky Sports activities+ has formally launched and will probably be built-in into Sky TV, streaming service NOW and the Sky Sports activities app, giving Sky Sports activities prospects entry to over 50 per cent extra dwell sport this 12 months at no additional price. Discover out extra right here.
