Ahead of Friday’s PFL Washington card and the “Battle of the Giants: Brace for Impact” on October 19, heavyweights Francis Ngannou and Renan Ferreira came together for the first time in a pre-fight press conference.
Ngannou has been the PFL’s biggest signing to date, but he’s yet to actually compete for the promotion, after dabbling in boxing matches against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
That’s set to change on Oct. 19 when Ngannou and Ferreira, the 2023 PFL heavyweight champ, finally throw down. It hasn’t been easy getting to this point, however.
Delaying Ngannou’s return to fighting was personal tragedy: the death of his 15-month old son, Kobe, this past April. That’s a subject that Ngannou broached early on during Thursday’s press conference in Washington, D.C., and elaborated on later speaking with Cageside Press.
“Fighting for me is a lifestyle. Again, I got to the point, I questioned myself if I should continue or if I should just retire. But I didn’t want my son to be the reason I do that,” Ngannou stated, asked why he chose to return to fighting in the wake of the tragedy. “So I decided so that I would keep doing it, fighting for him. He just became a new purpose for me. My son, he was 15 months old but he was very active, and I had a lot of plans for the future for him. Life decided otherwise.”
“I decided to make a positive out of his fifteen months of living, to find a strength out of him, to find him as a motivation to keep going instead of to quit. I think it’s the best way to honor him.”
All of that makes perfect sense, but the press conference hit a stumbling block when Renan Ferreira decided to call himself the “toughest challenge” Ngannou would face this year.
“Francis [Ngannou] has been going through a tough year in his life, but the toughest challenge in his life and in his year is gonna be me,” Ferreira stated via translator. “I’m gonna be the biggest problem of his year right now. A tough puzzle for him to figure out.”
Given his son died just four months ago, Ferreira certainly will not be Francis Ngannou’s biggest challenge this year. “Problema,” however, almost certainly meant in fighting, and he later reached out to multiple media members to clarify his statement.
Ferreira also posted a similar clarification on social media. “I just want to make something clear. Francis Ngannou is a great man & I respect him. When I said that I was going to be his biggest [challenge] this year I was talking about Anthony Joshua & Tyson Fury, not about his family. I am a father myself.”
