Dana White and Francis Ngannou have an infamous public rivalry with one another but there are people in the combat sports world who seem to manage to be on good terms with both. Appearing on MMA Canada, Karim Henniene will now take on Asiashu Tshitamba at PFL Africa 1 on July 19th. At the time of the recording, Antero dos Santos was the initial opponent for Henniene before dos Santos withdrew.
Combing back through some of his earlier outings on the Canadian mixed martial arts scene, it was referenced when Henniene got a photo op with Dana White in Toronto. This meeting took place at Unified MMA 55 which went down amid the UFC 297 fight week that transpired in the same Ontario city. When discussing the win inside of Rebel that night and the meeting with the UFC figurehead, Henniene said,
"Yeah, I got to be honest, that was surreal. Like I don't know. I've watched all the interview(s) of Dana. I'm watching the UFC since Royce Gracie and yeah, he was just there. I saw him and I was just, 'hey, Dana, I fought tonight.' He told me 'did you won?' I was like 'of course' and he was like 'come over here' and then we talked. He was like 'oh, how old are you? What's your record?' Like we had a little chat. It was nice and afterward we got a picture and that was all. But yeah, that was really a great experience to fight in front of the UFC."
PFL Africa's magnitude in the eyes of Karim Henniene
'The Kryptonian' is fairly well travelled over the big Canadian regional circuits despite his relatively brief career at 4-0 in professional mixed martial arts. Henniene has cut his teeth for Unified MMA (as mentioned) which many see as the biggest MMA show in Canada today, Samourai MMA which has a strong presence in Quebec, and his first two pro fights being with BTC Fight Promotions who have been stalwarts in a sometimes tragically underserved Ontario market.
While he mentioned it was great to fight in front of the UFC figurehead in Toronto, that same feeling seems to be there heading into this Smart Cage foray that will see him fight in front of the PFL Africa chairman Francis Ngannou. When addressing his excitement being part of this inaugural foray into Africa for the PFL, Henniene stated,
"Yeah, for sure. I'm excited to see Francis Ngannou here, courtside or ringside we call it. But yeah, it's a pleasure to fight in front of Francis Ngannou and the PFL team."
For his finals parting thoughts in the interview, Henniene quipped,
"I'm ahead to make history. I'll be the first Algerian-Canadian to win the belt in PFL Africa. So yeah, keep up with my journey and I'll do the work just for my fans."
PFL Africa 1 is headlined by Johnny Eblen who will defend his middleweight strap against Costello Van Steenis on Saturday.
