Eric Nicksick wants to see more of Francis Ngannou in the cage.
Ngannou has competed in both MMA and boxing since leaving the UFC in 2022. The former UFC heavyweight champion, now 19-3 in MMA, is coming off back-to-back first-round knockouts of Renan Ferreira and Philipe Lins.
Nicksick, Ngannou’s longtime coach, told MMA Junkie Radio that he is not sure what comes next.
I’ll actually see him in a couple of days. He hasn’t really said much about anything. He celebrated his 40th birthday at the beginning of the month and he had a pretty big blowout, so we’ll see.
I’ll get caught up with him and see what’s on his mind, and what he wants to do from a boxing standpoint or MMA standpoint. Hopefully MMA, because obviously I think we’re making some really good strides there. But we’ll see what MVP has to offer for him.
Ngannou’s biggest paydays have come in boxing, where he faced both Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. Nicksick said he treats that side as a learning experience.
I use that time to really sit back and watch what Dewey [Cooper] does and the other coaches and learn how to kind of formulate a game plan when it comes to something that I’m not very familiar with.
He believes Ngannou’s best work is still ahead of him in MMA.
Just the development of Francis from that Jairzinho fight all the way to Ciryl Gane to now. It’s like, man, there’s so many things that we’re advancing on. I just wish we had more time in the MMA space because I feel like we could break a lot of records, and he could be left as the greatest ever to do it.
And that’s just having more time in the cage. So that’s where I think selfishly, I would love to see him fight more MMA.
