Francis Ngannou och UFC närmare att enas i förhandlingarnaMMA & UFC NYHETER – SVERIGE

Under de senaste sju månaderna har mycket talat för att Francis Ngannou skulle lämna UFC när hans kontrakt går ut senare i år. Nu verkar det dock som att tungviktsmästaren och organisationen har återupptagit förhandlingarna och en försoning ser plötsligt ljusare ut enligt journalisten Ariel Helwani.

Francis Ngannou och UFC:s kontraktsförhandlingar går allt bättre enligt Ariel Helwani

Ngannou hade stora krav på om UFC ville ha kvar honom; han vill kunna få boxas om en supermatch dyker upp. Han vill försäkra sig om att UFC ger honom fler matcher per år. Generellt så vill han att många av UFC:s enligt Ngannou orättvisa klausuler ska plockas ut från framtida kontrakt.

Organisationen har aldrig varit flexibel när det kommer till detta så förhandlingarna såg ut att ha strandat. Enligt Ariel Helwani så verkar det ha gått framåt när det kommer till att lugna Ngannous tvivel och vi skulle nu kunna få se ett titelmöte mot Jon Jones i mars 2023:

Helwani sade följande i The MMA Hour:

Francis is about to become a free agent. But, I’m hearing that talks are actually pretty good. You saw Erick Nicksick, his coach, reference March 4th. I’ve been saying this — how long have I been saying if they couldn’t get a fight in December for Jones, the March early PPV was when they were going to try and do Jones vs. Ngannou. I think I may have said it like ten times?

So none of this is new, the newish stuff is that Francis is no longer represented by CAA, that opens the door for Endeavor wanting to do business. They will do business, and as I’ve said, I think they figure it out and I think he signs and I think they try to make that fight, March 4th.

Osäkrare om Fury-matchen blir av

Helwani tror att Tyson Furys val att sikta in sig på andra motståndare kan ha påverkat Ngannou:

That timeline works out, certainly for Jones and maybe even for Francis coming off the knee surgery from many months ago. I feel right now very confident that he’s going to re-sign. Plus there’s no [Tyson] Fury fight out there, unless Fury gets on the mic Saturday after beating Chisora for the third time, which we all expect is going to happen. ‘Francis, where you at?’ It doesn’t seem like Fury’s into that any more, right? He has this change of heart and he wants to fight, he wants big fights, he wants to keep going. I would be shocked.

Helwani fortsatte dock med att Ngannou inte längre har samma hinder som tidigare i karriären att numera stå på sig:

Where’s Francis going? He doesn’t have the leverage that maybe he thought he did. And more importantly, doesn’t have the roadblocks.

Now a bunch of managers have tried to broker a deal. Francis is standing pat. He is not doing any deals with house managers, he’s not doing any sort of friendly deals, he is sticking to his guns. And I have an infinite amount of respect for him in that regard and in all regards. But when it comes to the business, he’s not one of those guys that’ll say something on Zoom and then does something [different] behind the scenes. I think he’ll get what he wants, to a degree. Obviously he has leverage as UFC heavyweight champion and [Ngannou vs. Jones] would be one of the biggest fights of 2023.

I feel pretty confident, and this could change tomorrow, but as of right this moment, they’ll figure it out.

Ngannou skulle inte vara den första fightern att få tillåtelse att boxas. Den mest uppenbara jämförelsen är Conor McGregor som fick boxas mot legendaren Floyd Mayweather år 2017 där UFC var inblandade i matchens promotion.

The post Francis Ngannou och UFC närmare att enas i förhandlingarna appeared first on MMA & UFC NYHETER – SVERIGE.

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