Francis Ngannou finally returns to MMA on Saturday when he clashes with Renan Ferreira in the main event of a pay-per-view event where the PFL is banking on the investment it made in him as the biggest free-agent signing in the history of the promotion.
But does Ngannou’s name pull enough weight to actually convince fans to plunk down $49.99 to watch the card? UFC legend Matt Brown has his doubts.
“He’s not that big of a star,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “We watched him fight Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury because of him fighting those guys. He’s not a Conor McGregor where we’re just going to watch him no matter who he fights. Even if Conor fought some lower level guy, there would be a drop off in pay-per-views, right? He’s got to have a ‘B’ side also that’s a ‘B’ side.
“Francis is fighting a ‘D’ side here. It’s not a ‘B’ side. It’s a ‘D’ side, and Francis just isn’t big enough of an ‘A’ side to draw. We don’t know how much he’s getting paid, but if it’s the amounts we would guess, it’s not going to cover his expense, I don’t think.”
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Ngannou left the UFC as heavyweight champion but the promotion rarely reveals any specific details about pay-per-view sales surrounding any particular athlete.
That said based on reports made about Ngannou’s biggest fights in the UFC, he never headlined a card that drew massive sales with his name attached.
His boxing match against Fury reportedly did blockbuster numbers globally but failed to break through in the United States where costs were much higher. Add to that, Fury is a star in his own right as one of the top heavyweight boxers of the past 25 years.
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It’s for all those reasons why Brown just can’t see Ngannou pulling a massive number for his PFL debut, especially without a big named opponent to help him sell the card.
“A lot of these promoters, they need to understand we’re all deeply entrenched in the world of MMA so they’re big stars to us,” Brown explained. “Particularly because we have massive respect for them. Like we have massive respect for Francis Ngannou, what he’s done and who he is. But if you’re a promoter selling a pay-per-view, I think you have to step back and look at the reality of what the mainstream view on a guy is.
“Like Conor crossed the bridge, he hit the mainstream. Ronda [Rousey] crossed the bridge. Randy Couture even crossed the bridge somewhat. Chuck Liddell somewhat. I love Francis Ngannou, all due respect, he ain’t crossed the bridge. I can’t go down to the bar right now, and talk to someone about Francis Ngannou, and they know who he is.”
Brown argues that in the boxing matches Ngannou benefitted from taking on two of the biggest names in the sport with Fury and Joshua. That’s no longer the case in PFL and now it’s all on Ngannou to sell the fight based solely on his own star power.
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“How many people actually care?” Brown said. “We all watched Francis fight Tyson Fury. A lot of us watched him fight him fight Anthony Joshua. How many people are realistically going to buy a pay-per-view to watch him fight Renan Ferreira?”
Of course, Brown says he hopes that Ngannou finds all the success he can with the PFL, but he just doesn’t see enough evidence to believe that this endeavor is going to end up as a beneficial long term investment.
Perhaps the toughest part about this upcoming fight is that Brown absolutely sees a scenario where Ngannou suffers a brutal loss as well.
It’s been nearly three years since Ngannou last fought in MMA, and he’s coming off a devastating knockout to Anthony Joshua in boxing. It was the kind of knockout that could potentially change the way Ngannou is able to absorb damage moving forward.
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And Ferreira may not have the biggest name, but he definitely packs a serious punch.
“Renan Ferreira, it’s still a high-risk fight,” Brown said. “That’s a gigantic son of a b*tch. He’s a gigantic guy. You don’t have to hit that hard when you’re 6-foot-8, 260, 265 pounds or whatever. It’s still a risky fight for Francis Ngannou. He’s coming off a knockout with Anthony Joshua. Sometimes that changes a fighter, and he’s coming back to MMA.”
While Ngannou seems resolved to stick with his MMA career for now, he’s already expressed interest in eventually returning to boxing.
Brown actually sees that as a more viable option for him than MMA right now where he’s putting himself into a high risk, low reward situation every time he competes.
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“I’d like to see him get back to boxing,” Brown said. “Fight an up and comer or a journeyman. Fight someone you should beat. Like he fought two guys he absolutely shouldn’t have a chance against. He had a close fight with Tyson, a lot of people think that he maybe even won that fight. Now, you need to go do what boxers do. You’re 0-2, go fight a journeyman and build your way back up. Let’s see how good of a f*cking boxer you are.
“[Why are you] coming back to MMA? I don’t get the point of it. I don’t know if something contractual with PFL, or he’s just trying to get a payday. I just don’t really get what the point of it is.”
Dana White is serious about changing the rankings.
Over the past couple of months, the UFC rankings have been a source of constant consternation for White, and on Monday that continued as White ripped the rankings for Khalil Rountree Jr. remaining at No. 8 at light heavyweight after his thrilling loss to Alex Pereira at UFC 307.
But though White has attacked the rankings before, and even called for A.I. to take over, this time the UFC CEO intends to do something about it.
“If you look at who Pereira has beat, and how he’s beat them leading up to this fight, [Rountree] was winning on the scorecards when he got stopped,” White said at his Contender Series media scrum on Tuesday. “He was ahead on the scorecards. Stayed in the pocket, put on one of the greatest fights anybody has ever seen, and he stays at No. 8.
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“I can’t handle incompetence. I can’t take it anymore. It’s driving me crazy. And I can’t let people that I don’t believe know what the f*ck they’re talking about deal with the rankings anymore. I just can’t do it. I have to figure out a solution.
“Tomorrow I have a meeting with a group of people that are coming to me saying they have a solution to this problem. And God I hope they’re right, because I’m going to change it. The media will no longer control the rankings in the UFC.”
For White, the rankings are significant because of how they play into the UFC’s matchmaking. While White says that rankings are not the end-all-be-all when it comes to booking a fight, he also says they’re part of the conversation he, Mick Maynard, Sean Shelby, and Hunter Campbell have when making those decisions. But he also wants to draw a clear line between the promotion and however the rankings are done.
“The rankings are very important,” White said. “It’s important or I wouldn’t be — the rankings, judging, reffing. There are a lot of things we can’t control. Because there should never be a scenario where we are personally controlling the rankings. Can’t happen. You have to have another system in there.
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“At the end of the day, I make fights that people want to see anyway, but I believe that I should not be the one controlling the rankings. So we’re going to figure out a different system, because it can’t be the people who are doing it, because they’re not doing it right.”
This then begs the question, why can’t the UFC take control of the rankings? And for White it seems to be a hedge against biases among the UFC staff.
“We can’t do it,” White said. “I don’t think that it’s right that we would do the rankings. No matter how unbiased you try to be, it’s impossible. And I’ll be honest with you, there are some fighters I don’t like. There’s fighters that I really like. And there’s things that are good for the business. There are things that I don’t want in our hands at all. Not mine, not Mick’s, not Sean’s not Hunter’s, nobody. There has to be a third party or AI or something that does the rankings. It’s impossible not to be biased.”
Garry (15-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) has been angling to meet Covington (17-4 MMA, 12-4 UFC) in the octagon for several months now, and the unbeaten welterweight contender revealed that the UFC came to him with a bout offer a month ago.
Garry accepted but said he’s yet to hear back from Covington.
“What’s up, everyone? So, I’m coming on to let everybody know, keep everybody in the loop and keep everyone updated because it matters,” Garry said in a video on his Instagram. “A month ago, I was offered a fight with Colby Covington. It took me all of 20 seconds to respond to the email saying, ‘Yes, I’m in.’ A month later, we’ve still got no response from Colby. He’s avoiding me like the plague, and there’s one reason and one reason only this fight isn’t happening, and his name is Colby Covington.”
In an interview with Ariel Helwani, Topuria criticized Holloway for losing to McGregor in 2013, well before the two stars entered their primes. McGregor responded on social media, praising Holloway and warning Topuria that he could lose his title next Saturday in Abu Dhabi.
“Nah, [Holloway is] the real deal,” McGregor wrote in a since-deleted tweet. “Always was, always is. … One thousand percent he became way better after losing to me. He actually became an all-time great fighter after losing to me. This is a stellar fight, folks! He took moves as well with him. He became ambidextrous after fighting me. He can fight in both stances now as good as each other.
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“He will be very hard to catch for the little man. Don’t walk into a crushing blow, bro. He is strong, too. And very experienced. One hundred percent! Big fight feel for me here, folks! Oh yes, let’s go!”
Topuria didn’t take kindly to McGregor’s response and while he agreed Holloway has improved since that long-ago fight, he believes it was due to Holloway being ashamed to lose to a fighter of McGregor’s quality.
“One thousand percent Max has improved after fighting you,” Topuria wrote. “He must have realized that if he wanted to make a living from this, he couldn’t be so bad as to lose to someone like you. Nowadays, he beats you easily.
“Dustin [Poirier] knocked you out in the rematches, Nate [Diaz] beat you two times, Khabib [Nurmagomedov] humiliated you, and Floyd [Mayweather Jr.] gave you a master class in boxing at 50 years old. Take a seat, kid. You’re a fake fighter.”
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The fighters continued to trade insults on social media, though both later deleted their comments.
Topuria will have to focus on the task at hand with UFC 308 fight week just around the corner. He meets Holloway, a former UFC featherweight champion and the current “BMF” champion in the Oct. 26 main event.
With so much coverage of this year’s promising class of rookie quarterbacks, it’s easy to overlook the historical aspect of this past weekend. Five rookie starters — Chicago’s Caleb Williams, Washington’s Jayden Daniels, New England’s Drake Maye, Denver’s Bo Nix and New Orleans’ Spencer Rattler — combined for 12 touchdown passes.
That’s as many as they’d thrown in the first five weeks of this season combined, and it’s also the most touchdown passes ever thrown by rookie quarterbacks in one NFL weekend. The old record was 11, set in Week 16 of 2019 when Daniel Jones had five for the Giants, Dwayne Haskins had two for Washington, and four others — Arizona’s Kyler Murray, Detroit’s David Blough, Denver’s Drew Lock and Jacksonville’s Gardner Minshew — added one each.
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This past weekend, Williams had four, Maye had three, Daniels and Nix threw two each and Rattler had one. It’s only the second time four rookies have thrown multiple touchdown passes in the same weekend. The other time came in 2011 when Carolina’s Cam Newton, Jacksonville’s Blaine Gabbert, Minnesota’s Christian Ponder and Houston’s T.J. Yates accomplished the feat.
The individual success of this year’s rookie QBs is magnified by their team success. Daniels’ Commanders are 4-2 and surprise leaders atop the NFC East, and Williams’ Bears have the same 4-2 mark to much the same shock. Nix’s Broncos are 3-3, and the rest of the class is still searching for consistent wins.
Will this be a historic class of rookie quarterbacks? They’re on course for 68 touchdown passes, which would be one fewer than last year’s rookies, led by Houston’s C.J. Stroud (23 TD passes). The record for one rookie class of quarterbacks is 101 touchdowns, set in 2012 by a group led by Seattle’s Russell Wilson, Indianapolis’ Andrew Luck and Washington’s Robert Griffin III. And success as rookies doesn’t mean they’ll end up legends: The 2019 class had 90 touchdowns as rookies, with Jones and Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence potentially as the only NFL starters left from that group by Sunday.
It used to be a generational class of quarterbacks might not show up much at all as rookies. The 2004 draft yielded three of the top 11 quarterbacks ever in career passing yardage in the Giants’ Eli Manning, the Chargers‘ Philip Rivers and the Steelers‘ Ben Roethlisberger, but that rookie class had only 36 touchdowns total. Manning had six as a rookie, Rivers only one.
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Chargers rookies step up vs. Broncos
What NFL team had the most offensive/defensive snaps by rookies in Week 6? It was the Chargers, who got 283 from six rookies in their win over the Broncos. First-round tackle Joe Alt is a mainstay, second-round receiver Ladd McConkey is top-six in catches, receiving yards and touchdowns, and even third-round linebacker Junior Colson (who followed Jim Harbaugh from Michigan) has eight tackles in three games.
The surprise impact Sunday came from three late-round picks. Fifth-round corners Tarheeb Still and Cam Hart both started and played 105 of 110 defensive snaps, and sixth-round running back Kimani Vidal, making his NFL debut, caught a 38-yard touchdown pass from Justin Herbert.
Fourth-round backs shine as injury replacements
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Last week, it was the Giants’ Tyrone Tracy Jr. and the Dolphins‘ Jaylen Wright who stepped in as injury replacements and helped their teams to victory. In Week 6, there were three more such spot-start rookie stars.
— Buffalo’s Ray Davis, a fourth-round pick from Kentucky, stepped in for the injured James Cook on Monday, rushed 20 times for 97 yards and caught three passes for 55 yards in a close win over the Jets. Davis had six carries for 48 yards on the opening drive and added a 42-yard catch to set up another touchdown.
— San Francisco’s Isaac Guerendo, a fourth-round pick from Louisville, shined with Christian McCaffrey still sidelined and fill-in Jordan Mason in and out during Thursday’s win against Seattle. Guerendo broke out for a 76-yard run — the second-longest run in the NFL this season — in the final two minutes after the Seahawks had rallied back within five points. He finished with 99 yards on 10 carries, missing the century mark when he lost a yard on his final carry of the night.
— Tampa Bay’s Bucky Irving, a fourth-round pick from Oregon, got his first NFL start with Rachaad White sidelined and was part of the Bucs’ 277-yard day, rushing 14 times for 81 yards and a touchdown in a 51-27 rout of the Saints. Irving also moved ahead of Washington’s Daniels to take over the NFL rookie rushing lead with 328 yards.
Eagles second-round corner Cooper DeJean logged only eight defensive snaps before making his first start Sunday, taking over as Philadelphia’s slot corner. He played well against the Browns, logging six tackles and even sharing in a sack of Deshaun Watson. DeJean made an impact on special teams as well, handling punt returns and getting 51 yards on his four returns.
Only two rookies have both an interception and a forced fumble this season, and Bucs’ third-round nickel Tykee Smith had both on Sunday in Tampa Bay’s win over the Saints. His forced fumble was scooped up by safety Antoine Winfield for a touchdown, and his interception was part of a dominant fourth quarter as the Bucs pulled away. Smith picked off Rattler for the second year in a row, having gotten an interception last year when he was at Georgia and Rattler was at South Carolina.
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The other rookie with an interception and a forced fumble this season is Packers safety Evan Williams, a fourth-rounder from Oregon.
NFC North: Division of first-year kickers
The entire NFC North is off to a dominant start, all 4-2 or better, but the unsung common thread in the division: first-year kickers.
Minnesota’s rookie kicker, Will Reichard, a sixth-round pick from Alabama, is 25-for-25 this year, hitting all nine field goals and 16 extra points. Green Bay’s Brayden Narveson, undrafted out of NC State, already has 12 field goals, and Detroit has a first-year kicker in Jake Bates, who is 25-for-26 to open his NFL career. The NFC North has three first-year kickers, while the rest of the NFL has a total of two.
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Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.
The UFC continues its October schedule Saturday with UFC Fight Night 245, which goes down at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
As always, some marquee on-air talent will be there in “Sin City” to help guide viewers through the experience.
Details of who will work as commentators and analysts for each event have been acquired by MMA Junkie through a person with knowledge of the situation, and you can see the scheduled broadcast team below.
The main card lineup is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. ET following prelims slated to start at 4 p.m. ET.
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UFC Fight Night 245 desk analysts
Alan Jouban
Veteran broadcaster Karyn Bryant serves as desk anchor and host at UFC Fight Night 245.
“The Ultimate Fighter 15′ winner Michael Chiesa and retired welterweight veteran Alan Jouban join her as analysts at the desk.
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UFC Fight Night 245 roving reporter
Charly Arnolt
Charly Arnolt, formerly of WWE and ESPN, is on assignment to conduct pre- and post-fight interviews backstage with some of the athletes on the UFC Fight Night 245 card. She also will provide reports with real-time updates for the event.
UFC Fight Night 245 octagon announcer
Joe Martinez
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Noted octagon announcer Joe Martinez will introduce the fighters before battle at UFC Fight Night 245.
UFC Fight Night 245 cageside commentators
Brendan Fitzgerald, Dominick Cruz, Paul Felder
Brendan Fitzgerald will serve as the leading man on the mic from cageside at UFC Fight Night 245.
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He’ll command play-by-play and be joined in the booth by lightweight veteran Paul Felder, as well as former UFC/WEC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz.
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