Former heavyweight fighter Francis Ngannou seems to be ready to get back in the cage after the tragic death of his son.
The athlete revealed he lost his 15-month-old son in a medical emergency in April. The news came as a shock to the family, a month after his second-round KO loss to Anthony Joshua. Although the fighter took some time to recover from this tragedy, his coach, Eric Nicksick, believes the fighter is in a better mental space and may return to MMA.
In an interview with MMAJunkie, Nicksick discussed Ngannou’s getting back into the game following this unexpected tragedy.
“That type of tragedy, that type of loss, you just never know how somebody’s going to rebound. But getting him back in the room, getting him back in the gym kind of reinvigorated those MMA juices again and he wanted to fight, so I’m happy for him, man. It seems like he’s in a good place right now.”
Nicksick believes Ngannou needs a helping hand during this time while he undergoes this excruciating healing journey.
“I think that was the main focus of all of us was getting him back in the room and just try to help him heal. That was really it,” Nicksick said. “If in that time, in that process he felt comfortable that he wanted to fight again, then so be it. Really for us, it was just more about his psyche and getting our friend back and taking care of him.
“… We’re talking about the most resilient person I’ve ever met. This is just something I think that for whatever reason, God, fate, the universe, just puts these hurdles in front of this man, and we’ve seen what he’s capable of doing.”
The Cameroonian fighter is set to fight at a pay-per-view event in October and has decided to continue training to help work through this trying period.
I need some activities,” Ngannou said. “I need to stay active, to be in a zone that I belong to. Maybe that also will help or change, I also need to keep it going to fight for my boy. For Kobe.”
“The past three months haven’t been the easiest,” Ngannou continued. “I think it has been by far the hardest shape in life since I lost my son. For some time, I felt like I didn’t even have to do this or questioning about if I should do it or fight again or something. But I know that my son had something good in his memory and I wanted to do something good in his memory. To use this not to be the reason for me to quit, but maybe to be a motivation and also to fight for him.”
Ngannou was formerly a UFC heavyweight title holder. However, after his unanimous decision win against Ciryl Gane to retain his title, the fighter faced a contract dispute with the promotion. This led to him leaving the UFC and signing in with PFL. The fighter soon decided to try his hand at boxing, but he suffered two noteworthy losses against top boxers Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
“It’s not that I have come close to retiring, it’s just that … you have different thoughts,” Ngannou said. “You see how fragile life is. You feel you’re hurt, you feel powerless, you feel useless. And you question your existence, about the importance of all of this, or life in general. But it’s not that I have considered retiring or something. It’s just that you have to deal with something that wasn’t on the landscape before.”
Since his transition and the news of his son’s death, many have wondered if the fighter will ever return to MMA or if he would ever fight at all.
“I think it’s easy to overcome hurdles, to overcome life’s challenges when it’s just situations,” Ngannou said. “But this is something different. It’s something that hurts your soul. It’s different. I would not compare this to anything that I knew or that I experienced. I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but it’s different.
“All of a sudden you feel like you haven’t been able to do anything in your life. You haven’t been able to overcome anything, you feel the most vulnerable as you have ever been.”
I just have to find that out by fighting,” Ngannou said. “There’s only one way to find out, but also, I think now I have a different motivation in my son. I used to fight for a lot of reasons, but I don’t think I had the biggest reason. The biggest purpose to fight until now.”
