Francis Ngannou came up short in his bid to capture the UFC Heavyweight Title at UFC 220, suffering a lopsided decision loss to Stipe Miocic.
The fighter has only been competing for about four years and says that he has learned a lot from the loss to the champion.
“I’ve been in this sport only four years, and I know I’ll keep learning and improving,” Ngannou told MMA Junkie. “What happened tonight was the last step for me to learn about this sport, because it’s the only thing I’ve never faced – a five-round fight, and how to deal with it. I made a mistake, and that will not happen again. I came here today to win the fight. I just discovered a new part (about fighting) that I was ignorant about.”
Ngannou had only suffered one other loss prior to UFC 220 and that came to Zoumana Cisse at 100% Fight: Contenders 21 in December 2013. One thing that Ngannou knows he did wrong in the title bout was to underestimate the champion.
“The problem is I underestimated my opponent, and I went too hard in the first round, and he was tougher than I thought,” he said. “So (Miocic) resisted, and he put together a better game plan than me.”
While Ngannou suffered a lopsided loss in that bout, a victorious Miocic wound up breaking the UFC Heavyweight Title defense record.
