Rising French talent Francis Ngannou will square off with former heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski at UFC on Fox 23 in Denver, Colorado.
Ngannou is currently riding a streak of four straight wins since joining the UFC in 2015. His next fight against Arlovski at the Pepsi Center in Denver will undoubtedly be a step up in class, however.
The Frenchman, along with UFC newbie Tom Duquesnoy are the two hottest talents to have emerged from the French MMA scene. Two-weight world BAMMA champion Duquesnoy has been praised by Ngannou, who proclaimed the signing as a massive positive for French MMA due to Duquesnoy’s big talent.
“This is really good news for [French fighters] because the more French talent we have in the UFC, the more opportunity we have to prove that we have great fighters in France,” Ngannou said.
“We have to train the government to recognise that MMA needs to be legalised in France and every time our fighters have success or given opportunities in an organisation like UFC it helps us.
“Duquesnoy is a huge prospect for French MMA and I think he will do very well in the UFC. I look forward to seeing his first fight and I hope he does well.”
Ngannou was alluding to October last year when MMA was banned in France under new regulations. The French MMA Federation will challenge the Ministry of Sports’ legislation, in order to have it recognised as a sport as almost every other country in the world does.
Ngannou still harbors dreams of performing at a UFC event in front of a home crowd one day, and the MMA community will certainly hope he can realise his ambition for the sake of the sport in France:
“Of course, it is a big goal of mine to do this,” Ngannou said. “I think everyone that is a French MMA fighter has the dream of doing this and fight for our people. I’d love to be on the main card of a UFC event in Paris or somewhere else in France.
“It would be something great. It would be all over every magazine and I would be able to have all my friends and family come too. It is very hard for them when we fight in America because it costs a lot of money to travel. It would be great to have a full arena full of supporters.
“I think one day it will happen and when it does I want to be fighting.”
