Stipe Miocic (left) and Francis Ngannou (right) square off prior to their first fight at UFC 220
Francis Ngannou named next challenger for Stipe Miocic over Jon Jones
Francis Ngannou will be next in line for a shot at Stipe Miocic’s heavyweight championhsip.
Last night after Miocic defeated Daniel Cormier by unanimous decision to end their trilogy, both Ngannou and light heavyweight champion Jon Jones were calling for the fight on Twitter. Following their comments, UFC president Dana White put an end to the discussion as to who is the next contender for the heavyweight strap.
Great performance to both guys 👏 Congrats to Stipe on the performance.
— Francis Ngannou (@francis_ngannou) August 16, 2020
See you soon. #NgannouVsStipe2
Heavyweight world championships I will be seeing you real soon. Victorious
— BONY (@JonnyBones) August 16, 2020
“Francis is definitely next,” White said at the UFC 252 post-fight press conference. “I mean, you can’t jump over Francis. Francis has been out there destroying everybody, and if you look at how long ago it was that he got that title shot (against Miocic), he’s worked his way back. It belongs to Francis Ngannou. But yeah, Jon Jones going to heavyweight is very interesting.”
Ngannou (15-3) lost to Miocic at UFC 220 in January 2018. Following that loss, he dropped another fight to Derrick Lewis, which many consider to be the most boring fight in UFC history. After that, Ngannou heated up by picking up first-round knockout wins over Curtis Blaydes, Cain Velasquez, Junior Dos Santos and Jairzinho Rozenstruik.
While the Miocic and Ngannou rematch is next, there is no time frame as to when the fight will happen.
