UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou provided more details about his knee injury heading into his UFC 270 title defense against Ciryl Gane.
Ngannou is in the middle of an ongoing contract dispute with the promotion. He revealed that he had torn his MCL and ACL just four weeks before his January unanimous victory over Gane. The Predator underwent surgery in March, and is currently on the road of recovery — possibly for a March fight with Jon Jones (MMA Fighting reported this bout in October, but it is not yet over).
In regards to the knee injury, Ngannou opened up about it on his Road 2 Recovery series on his YouTube channel.
” Everything was made for me to collapse and fall — not come back. That was it,” Ngannou said. That was the way it was intended. Like, ‘OK, that’s how it’s going to be, let’s go.’
” The injury occurred on December 28, three days following Christmas .”
Ngannou’s head coach Eric Nicksick said that a fighter he wasn’t fully familiar with from Germany stepped up to spar the champion. Despite some trepidation, the session went on before the moment occurred that put the fight with Gane in jeopardy.
“We were sparring and I think he got overwhelmed,” Ngannou explained. He did a [desperation] takedown and I could hear the crackle on my knee when I turned around. You know something is going on when that crackling sound comes from your knee.
” I was so warm that it wasn’t even real, but I felt something [was] happening. I was hoping that maybe it was just a bad feeling.”
A little more than two weeks prior to UFC 270, Ngannou would take whatever steps were necessary to improve his situation — even receiving stem cell treatment.
While the outlook was dire, Ngannou wouldn’t allow himself to pull out of the fight — even though he couldn’t do much, if anything, physically.
“I was willing to do anything possible for me to heal a little bit,” Ngannou said. “I wasn’t expecting to [fully] heal up. Although I didn’t expect to find a miracle cure for the injury, I did hope to feel a bit better.
“Technically I could not do anything. I wasn’t allowed to do anything where I had to pivot with striking, or anything where I would have to take a chance.”
Source: https://www.mmafighting.com/2022/11/23/23475071/francis-ngannou-details-knee-injury-prior-ufc-270everything-was-designed-for-me-to-fail?rand=96749
