Ngannou Made ‘More Than Everything I Earned In My Career’ Against Fury

Francis Ngannou goes in-depth on the pay and positive treatment he received from Saudi Arabia for his Riyadh Season superfight against Tyson Fury.

However well or poorly the Francis Ngannou vs. Tyson Fury fight did on pay-per-view, there’s no doubt Ngannou made a ton of money nearly dethroning the heavyweight king.

Leading up to the fight, the number we kept hearing for Ngannou’s purse was $10 million. And while “The Predator” will neither confirm nor deny these numbers, he is giving us context on how much he was paid in comparison to his days in the UFC.

“First off all, whatever would have been my next fight, from the moment that I left the UFC, was going to be way different from what I made,” he said on The Last Stand podcast. “Because in the past three years in the UFC, I was in a contract issue that I didn’t want to sign a new contract that would have given me more money, but not enough, right? Also the conditions and the terms which would have prevented me from doing boxing, which was one of my ultimate dreams that I wanted to do.”

“So it would have been different, even from my next MMA fight, completely different. It’s at least more than everything that I have earned in my life, in my career.”

“You have to understand that I wasn’t getting much pay,” Ngannou added. “My salary, basically from the beginning, your salary starts very low. It’s like 10k/10k and all that stuff. Moving your way up, you get to the point where you still get out there with almost ten fights, struggling. So … it was a lot different. And the treatment was also completely different. The treatment was royal.”

“We can’t go without mentioning that. They gave me the royal treatment for my family, get my family on the ring, get them travel, put them on the ringside to watch me fight. Treat them, take them out to visit the city, everything.”

Compare that to the UFC, which provides two plane tickets to a fighter: one for themselves and one for a corner. The other two corners? Flight costs for them come out of the fighter’s purse, along with a ton of other expenses the UFC doesn’t cover.

It’s no surprise that Ngannou is extremely happy now. He went from the UFC, which is notorious for penny pinching, to a valued member of the Saudi Arabia sports roster. There was never going to be a comparison between what they pay and the UFC. But we don’t need big Dubai money to recognize how low the pay and poor the treatment is in the UFC.