Name: Francis Ngannou on First Fight Against Stipe & Starting MMA
Uploaded: 2021-02-09T18:52:21.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Francis Ngannou on First Fight Against Stipe & Starting MMA' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-02-09. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Francis Ngannou on First Fight Against Stipe & Starting MMA' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-02-09. Transcript available.

so this has been a wild ride for you huh yeah it's been a long road you know
nobody could have
imagined basically from uh looking back from my life that uh we're gonna get
here you know today
i have to talk with uh great people around the world you know such as you and
uh being the biggest
sport podcast ever you know and to be about to fight for the ufc heavyweight
championship of the
world too for the second time for the second time yeah the redemption the
redemption what was the
first time like for you what was was the feeling of the first fight like for
you oh um i had two
different feelings uh from that fight first uh obviously i was very um upset
and disappointed
that i didn't uh win the fight and you know i as everyone who is fighting for
the title you want
to get out there as a victorious but uh to be honest i always look in that
fight and since uh the fight
day just after the fight i look at it and i'm like this is good like um i
learned just too much
in that fight because i even though i was in the level of fighting for the uh
world title you know
but i still have some some missing part in my game and in my experience i i
remember i was
asking my question to myself like okay how did it look like to go into three
rounds right basically i'm
going to go into a potential five rounds that i never been in three rounds how
did it look like
how is it to prepare for this kind of fight and uh i had this fight like six
week six weeks um earlier
so i was having a lot of questions then after that fight that night i'm like
okay i get it
yeah yeah yeah it's a very big learning experience right yeah yeah because you
were smashing everybody
everybody you were knocking everybody out so you had these very quick fights
yes very quick very quick
rise and uh didn't spend enough time in the octagon to like have those
experience even though i was almost
uh he was like uh he was almost four years three years and a half things i'd be
four years that i'd been
doing the sport but uh didn't spend enough time in the octagon to have that
experience i think
uh in one night i have a uh it i cover more than what i've been spending in the
octagon from the rest of
my career yeah no i'm sure it's um it's gotta be uh a difficult thing to figure
out how to pace yourself
for a five round fight when you've only been knocking people out quickly before
that yeah uh also
you know some people uh get here why they've been profession when where they've
been having a at least
i did uh lives for a long time maybe wrestling right maybe doing some different
sport at school or at
college but uh i never get into that stuff you know growing up i was just like
finding my way to survive
then i end up uh finding myself in somewhere that uh i never been there you
know the so the experience was
just crazy how old were you when you had your first training your first martial
arts training oh that
was in uh summer october 2013 that was my first wow yeah so just eight years
ago yeah and two years
after that i was fighting my first fight in the usa and i remember basically
like at first when i
went in the martial art he was just for fun to a curiosity i'm like oh it's fun
oh it's good i like
those uh kick shit or you know but i didn't like seeing myself being a um um ufc
fighter and people
was like oh if you put yourself into this you can become a ufc fighter and a ufc
champion you can have
a ufc belt wrapped around your waist i'm like whatever you know i didn't care
about it until i have the
ufc contract like two years after that i'm like okay this might be the
opportunity that i i have been
looking for so it's time to capitalize and showcase my my talent and show the
world and shock the world
how many fights did you have before you fought in the ufc six fights six fights
and did you have
them all in france a few fights in france uh just four in france i had four
friends a fight in france and
you know in france the ground and pound is not allowed when he goes that was
back uh back then
because mma was still illegal so when he goes on the ground he's just turned
into grab grappling game game
really yeah so i had three four fights in france one in sweden and one in bahrain
bahrain so when
did they find out about you how the ufc find out about you um that was um that
was my coach fernand
by the time was working with uh a manager named uh tiago uh a brazilian guy so
they kind of like push
uh tiago has a connection with uh i mean he was a manager so fernand was all
the time sending him uh text
message and um videos that he will uh forward to the ufc until and i was like
yes but uh he hasn't fight
nobody tough yet yeah he hasn't get test uh a real test yet until i uh i fought
this guy in bahrain
after william badulti and i knocked him out in the second round then i get my ufc
control right after
that what was it like the first fight in the ufc was it different whoa uh that
was a crazy experience
you know i didn't i didn't even know the rules back then i remember i was in uh
orlando and i'm like
man this is the time like i'm going to fight uh to be seen in the whole world
um so this is my the
time to take my opportunity to showcase uh my talent to prove that uh i can do
something
then i'm like okay so what is this up what it is about mma what how mma was
what is the rules how it
goes and i couldn't get it like didn't know the rules but because you you got
used to no ground
fighting punching on the ground because there's no ground and found in france
yeah even though i was
just doing it for two years and remember at first it was just for fun right so
it didn't really was
there to become a professional fighter you know uh all i cared about uh at the
time was boxing then uh
like i found my i found myself there in two years then i'm like okay what is
the rules again uh how it
works okay uh if you try to take me down i can do this like trying to figure
all those out it was very
stressful and i'm like guess what at the end of the day it's just fighting i
mean uh i don't know if
this guy is doing some kung fu but he's just fighting we're gonna figure it out
you know it's just men
between men you know right yeah we're gonna figure it out i mean you know i'm a
tough guy you know so
uh i'm gonna handle it why did you transition to mma and not not go into boxing
it's not like a
transition and i didn't have a choice you know i was i was doing mma uh because
when i get in when i went in
france i was uh uh i didn't have a uh paper so i was illegal so i couldn't work
and uh i wanted so bad
to do uh sport and i was doing boxing and mma but the mma was the one that was
more open and giving me
opportunity like having a ufc contract as mma fighter was a big deal and uh
didn't have much you know like
boxing war is kind of like a uh very complicated business you have to know
somebody they have to like
line you up it's very complicated but mma was just easy you know people out
then i'm like who is
that guy who want that guy it was pretty pretty uh easy mma wise yeah boxing
you have to be connected
to the right promoter yeah yeah and that takes time yeah and uh basically uh
regarding my situation back
then uh i had a lot of oats you know uh coming from nowhere nobody knows me
with my accent and you know
uh in french when you have accent it's not a good thing it's not no what's it
like over there it's
frustrating because the the way that they look at you when you speak with your
accent you know you
don't feel comfortable you can't like let let yourself express yourself you
just feel bad about
yourself you know just seeing people react some people reaction sometime and
you didn't have a
resident card who was like a migrant so it was kind of together was a tough
situation to deal with
uh basically in the boxing business because they're gonna go see this promoter
talk about you
but who is that guy where did this come from you know it's hard to have credit
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