The professional rivalry between former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou and Professional Fighters League heavyweight champ Renan Ferreira nearly took an ugly turn at Thursday’s pre-fight press conference. Follow-up statements from both men remedied what some perceived as terribly underhanded fight promotion ahead of their Oct. 19 fight.
“Francis has been going through a tough year in his life, but the toughest challenge in his life and his year is gonna be me,” Ferreira said through an interpreter on Thursday. “I’m gonna be the biggest problem of his year.”
There were two leading interpretations of Ferreira’s message. Some viewers believed Ferreira referred to Ngannou’s brutal knockout loss to former heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua in March. The more disturbing interpretation is that Ferreira was alluding to the death of Ngannou’s 15-month-old son Kobe earlier this year.
The situation was further complicated by various Brazilian fighters and media members who couldn’t agree on the accuracy of the Portuguese-to-English translation.
Ferreira reportedly called Ngannou and several media members to clarify his statements and published a video insisting his comments were not about Ngannou’s late son. Ferreira assured he was addressing Ngannou’s loss in the boxing ring.
“Today we had the press conference and I saw a few things came out in the press that were completely distorted when speaking about Francis, saying that I was the biggest problem for him this year, but I was referring to the fight,” Ferreira said in the video in Portuguese, which was translated to English by MMA Junkie. “What I said has no connection to his personal life, of everything he just went through with son. I’m a father, I have kids as well, and I will never touch such a delicate subject. I wouldn’t go that low. My condolences to Francis. I feel for his loss. I would never say something like that.
“Everything I said was about Francis Ngannou’s year, you get me. He’s coming off two losses in boxing, two year layoff (in MMA), at no point did I want to talk about his personal life and everything that went down with his son. That wasn’t my intention. That’s not me, it’s not in my character. I’d never go that low. People are talking and distorting everything into a crazy version of what happened today. I just wanted to clarify what happened today, that it has nothing to do with what they’re saying. It’s not me doing something that low. I just wanted to make that clear.”
Ngannou took the incident in stride, telling media members in a scrum that he had no hard feelings towards his opponent. Ngannou also confirmed that he spoke with Ferreira over the phone.
“I didn’t take that as an issue. When he called me, I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ I didn’t take it that way. I know the whole translation thing. With the press conference and speakers, I always have a tough time hearing things. There’s an echo or whatever. I didn’t take any of that personally.”
2023 PFL heavyweight tournament winner Ferreira earned the right to challenge Ngannou by defeating former Bellator heavyweight champion Ryan Bader in February 2024. Ngannou will compete in a mixed martial arts cage for the first time since unifying the UFC heavyweight title against Ciryl Gane in January 2022. Ngannou has not competed under the PFL banner since leaving the UFC. Ngannou has since occupied his time by boxing Tyson Fury to a split-decision loss before succumbing to Joshua. Ngannou vs. Ferreira headlines PFL’s “Battle of the Giants” card in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Oct. 19.
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