Francis Ngannou says Jairzinho Rozenstruik hasn’t impressed him, eyes early KO win
Francis Ngannou hasn’t been impressed by Jairzinho Rozenstruik’s run in the UFC.
Although Rozenstruik is undefeated, in his last fight he was getting beaten by Alistair Overeem. But, Rozenstruik KO’d Overeem with just a couple seconds left in the fight.
So, Ngannou thinks Rozenstruik got lucky in that fight. But, he admits he won’t take him lightly in their UFC Columbus main event showdown.
“No I haven’t seen nothing to impress me,” Ngannou told MMA Junkie. “Regarding that fight against Overeem, I mean, he got beat up the entire fight and he got lucky at the end of the fight basically by the early stoppage. The referee, in my opinion was early and you know, he gave him the win but honestly his UFC career, nothing to impress. I haven’t seen nothing, but with that being said, it’s not to underestimate him because he was a kickboxer and he has some good hands so he knows the striking game. Now lets find out what he knows about MMA.”
Francis Ngannou hasn’t fought since last June when he knocked out Junior dos Santos. Since then, he has been waiting for a fight and is surprised Rozenstruik is the opponent.
“Honestly he wasn’t the one that I was expecting but they wanted him to fight me and that’s why they made it so fast,” Ngannou said. “The guy went from ranked what, he was ranked 13 or 14 to No. 5 basically with that fight. That fight he had against Alistair Overeem. So it was clear that they just wanted to push him up and to make that fight happen.”
The former title challenger expected to fight Alexander Volkov next but says the Russian turned it down too many times.
“Realistically, Volkov was the one making sense but Volkov has been turning down the fight several times,” Ngannou said. “Rozenstruik was obviously calling me out which is something that doesn’t happen often. So at least with Rozenstruik, you know for a fact that the fight will happen.”
In the end, Francis Ngannou is confident he will get his hand raised and expects to do so with an early finish.
“The only way I see the fight going is me knocking him out,” Ngannou said. “Round 1 or Round 2. I don’t know so I hope he’s good enough to pass Round 1 because Round 1 I’ll just take to set up.”
