Do we like them?Do we like Francis Ngannou?
Our score: 8 out of 10. No harmful words or acts turned up, plus real good done in Cameroon, held back only by a contested claim about a UFC office scuffle.
Ngannou's backstory is the stuff of films. He grew up in a Cameroonian village known for its sand mines, and at about nine he was shovelling sand onto trucks to help his family survive. He told NPR it was a “survival job” because the family had no choice.
At 26 he left home chasing a heavyweight title. He crossed the Sahara, failed at the fences into Spanish territory and tried the sea in an inflatable raft six times. A Red Cross boat eventually picked him up, and after about two months in a Spanish prison he was granted refugee status. He then found a gym in Paris and stumbled into MMA, which he first didn't want to do, and about nine years after leaving Cameroon he won the UFC heavyweight belt.
The big stoush is with Dana White. Ngannou left the UFC, saying it wasn't about money and that he felt disrespected, and he has called the contracts unfair to fighters. In late 2025 White said on the Flagrant podcast that Ngannou grabbed him by the shirt and grabbed UFC executive Hunter Campbell by the collar. That is White's allegation, and no court has looked at it. Asked on the Ariel Helwani Show, Ngannou didn't explicitly deny it and said he didn't find it important, which is why it earns an asterisk and not a clean sheet.
On the harm check, nothing nasty turned up. I found no remarks from him about LGBTQ+ or trans people, women, vaccines or the climate, and the record is thin there, so that's an absence and not an endorsement. On immigration he said in 2025 that he “completely” disagreed with Trump's immigration policy, and that America was “a country built on diversity and migration”. He also said he saw Trump as a direct businessman, which is a mixed bag but not harm.
The recent news is the comeback. At the Intuit Dome in May 2026 he knocked out Philipe Lins in the first round, his second MMA bout in four years. Afterwards he said he'd like to fight Jon Jones once before they both retire, and swapped banter with Jake Paul. He later said he wanted to slap Paul after a heated run-in, which is more bravado than anything sinister.
The good stuff is real. He started the Francis Ngannou Foundation to help kids in Cameroon, and in January 2019 he opened the country's first MMA gym. The foundation can support up to 100 children with training gear and clothes. In his words, he wants them to know “people care about them and that they count.”