UFC President Dana White says there was a time when Francis Ngannou could’ve received a pink slip.
Ngannou is the UFC Heavyweight Champion but he’s found himself at odds with the promotion. An interim UFC Heavyweight Title fight has been booked between Derrick Lewis and Ciryl Gane for UFC 265 on August 7. White blasted Ngannou’s management team for expressing their surprise with the move.
This isn’t the first time White has had an issue with Ngannou. When “The Predator” suffered a two-fight skid against Stipe Miocic and Derrick Lewis, the UFC boss claimed that Ngannou developed an ego and didn’t train properly.
During an interview with The Mac Life, White went as far as to say Ngannou was in a position where he could’ve been cut before he made a comeback and won the UFC gold (h/t Middle Easy).
“I think the ego problem was a whole different situation. It’s not even worth getting into, but we got past that. We got past all that. He lost two in a row at one point, and we could’ve parted ways with him, but we didn’t. We stuck with him and now he’s the world champ, and you know… we’ll see how this plays out.
“It’s just a guy from CAA. Not the guy who was talking tough on Instagram, that guy is not even the guy I was talking about. It’s his other manager. I don’t know what the pecking order is over there, but yeah, we had a deal and he came back and said we didn’t have a deal.”
Time will tell if cooler heads will prevail between White and Ngannou’s team. Ngannou has already made it clear that he isn’t too thrilled with fighter pay. He had also been calling for a showdown with former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones but White wanted to book him against Lewis.
