Former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou scored him some autographed swag after having dinner with soccer icon Cristiano Ronaldo.
In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to soak up Saturday’s extremely anticipated rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury at Kingdom Enviornment, Ngannou revealed in a social media put up that he not solely had dinner with Ronaldo but in addition walked away with a handful of autographed jerseys courtesy of ‘CR7.’
Earlier this yr, Ronaldo sat cageside on the PFL Battle of the Giants pay-per-view to witness Ngannou’s long-awaited return to combined martial arts towards heavyweight knockout artist Renan Ferreira.
Ronaldo Supplied Francis Ngannou a number of phrases of encouragement forward of PFL debut
In keeping with Ngannou’s coach Eric Nicksick, ‘El Bicho’ was sitting backstage at one level and insisted on giving ‘The Predator’ a number of phrases of encouragement simply earlier than he made his approach to the Good Cage.
“He was so cool and super down to earth,” Nicksick informed MMA Junkie. “He was an excellent cool man and truly an enormous combating fan, so he had a bunch of questions, he was speaking to me about [Sean] Strickland, this and that, no matter combat it was. He was actually all the way down to earth after which at one level Francis obtained as much as wrap his palms, and Ronaldo was form of speaking about how he might really feel Francis’ power, and he goes, ‘I’m simply going to present him phrases of encouragement…’
“He was talking about the loss of one of his children and kind of how he related to that and things like that. It was kind of cool. I know how big of a star he is, but sitting next to me and having this very personal conversation made him feel like he was part of the team right then and there. His son was in there with us and hanging out so it was a very much welcomed energy to have in the room. Especially someone of that stature who understands the highest of pressure, so it was cool and he was a great guy” (h/t Bloody Elbow).
Ngannou ended up scoring a dominant first-round TKO towards Ferreria in his PFL debut — an particularly spectacular feat when you think about that he hadn’t competed inside a cage in almost three years.
What’s subsequent for Ngannou stays to be seen, however ‘The Predator’ has left the door open for a return to boxing regardless of going 0-2 with back-to-back losses towards Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
