Jon Anik Happy for Francis Ngannou

Former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou had an impressive professional boxing debut against the WBC and lineal heavyweight titleholder Tyson Fury on Oct. 28 in Saudi Arabia.  UFC commentator Jon Anik was happy for “The Predator”.   

“I was going crazy.  I was disrupting children and everything that was going on in the household.  It was very exciting,” Anik told MMAFighting about Ngannou dropping Fury in the third round.  

“I’m so happy for Francis Ngannou.  It was a sad day for me as a voice of the UFC when he left the promotion because I was very excited to see and call the Francis Ngannou era,” Anik said.  “The guy’s life is a major motion picture.  As I’ve said repeatedly on our UFC telecasts, the average citizen in Batié, Cameroon makes $1300 a year on average.  What he was able to come out of and become the baddest man on the planet by consensus is nothing short of unheard of, extraordinary.  

“He’s an outstanding athlete, and I think, lost in a lot of the big nature of what happened is that the desire for Francis Ngannou to be great and the discipline and the work ethic finally caught up to the physical gifts.  There was a time in his UFC career where that wasn’t necessarily omnipresent.  I’m just so happy for this individual and his team because they bet on Francis.  They should have bet on Francis Ngannou and they reaped the benefits as far as the fight itself is concerned.”

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“Fury deserves credit for accepting this Ngannou fight and giving Francis the opportunity, but does this not lay the foundation for an immediate rematch and hopefully a $25 million payday for Francis Ngannou,” continued Anik.  

“I don’t know that we should be all that surprised that he realized success.  I asked Kenny [Florian] on our show, ‘why are we surprised that he had success here?’  I ask the analysts of the world.  ‘Is it that he was more defensively responsible and sound than you expected him to be?’  For Kenny, yeah, a lot of it was rooted in how sound he was and how well he saw whatever shots were coming his way.  Fury had some success with the jab.  I’m just so happy for Francis Ngannou…”

“Hopefully there’s a world where this man competes in mixed martial arts again because right now my appetite is actually more to see him in boxing, to see how far he can take that, to see him right now in MMA.”