Dana White has never pretended to like Francis Ngannou. Now he’s gone a step further: he’s admitted he wanted the former UFC heavyweight champion to lose his last fight in the promotion.
Speaking on Big Boy’s show, the UFC president was asked when he last truly rooted against one of his own fighters. White didn’t hesitate.
“A guy that I wanted to lose… it would have to be Francis Ngannou,” he said. “Damn right I wanted Ngannou to lose.”
The fight in question: UFC 270 in January 2022, when Ngannou faced then-interim champion Ciryl Gane for the undisputed heavyweight title. It was billed as a clash of styles and a passing-of-the-torch possibility. White clearly hoped for the latter.
Instead, Ngannou wrestled, out-grappled, and outlasted Gane over five rounds to earn a unanimous decision and retain his belt. The win turned out to be his final act inside the Octagon.
White’s admission only underlines how toxic the relationship had become by then.
“He’s a Bad Guy”
White has long bristled at working with Ngannou, but his recent comments have stripped away any remaining veneer of diplomacy.
Earlier this week, he lumped Ngannou in with one of his least favorite figures in combat sports.
“Ngannou is on my Oscar De La Hoya list,” White said. “Look at the history of Francis Ngannou and the other companies he’s been with. He’s a bad guy, man. He’s a bad guy, and I’m at a point in my life where I just don’t want to do business with bad guys, you know what I mean? I just don’t.”
No nuance. No softening. Just a promoter openly celebrating that he no longer has to deal with a former champion who walked away on his own terms.
Ngannou, for his part, has so far chosen not to fire back in kind. Publicly, he has stayed above the fray, declining to trade insults even as his former boss keeps his name in circulation. Whether that restraint holds after White’s latest confession remains to be seen.
Time to Move On?
What’s clear is that Ngannou is no longer a UFC fighter. His story with the promotion is over, the belt vacated, the heavyweight division reshaped without him.
Which raises a simple question: why is White still talking about him?
Every time the UFC president revisits the feud, it drags attention away from the current landscape at heavyweight. The division now belongs to Tom Aspinall, a dynamic champion who has not set foot in the Octagon in nearly a year. That’s where the energy should be: on the man holding the belt, on the contenders chasing him, on the future of a marquee weight class.
Instead, the lingering echoes of a broken relationship keep reverberating.
White got his wish in one sense: Ngannou is gone. The UFC has moved on contractually. The schedule has moved on. The rankings have moved on.
The only thing that hasn’t, at least not yet, is the conversation.
