UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou continued to fuel the pre-fight narratives between him and his former training partner, interim champ, Ciryl Gane, ahead of their UFC 270 title unification clash by claiming he knocked Gane out in sparring.
Ngannou spoke with reporters at the media day for this weekend's pay-per-view event and clarified a statement he made on the UFC 270 "Countdown" show where he claims to have knocked out Gane in a previous sparring session via a left high kick.
“Yes, I knocked him out,” Ngannou said (h/t MMA Junkie). “(It was) a high kick, left high kick. That knockout wasn’t a voluntary knockout. It was in sparring. It was an accident. I didn’t intend to knock him out. I didn’t go there to knock him out. Personally, it’s not something that I feel proud of. I don’t walk around and feel all tough because I knocked my sparring partner out or down or whatever. Usually, stuff like that happens in training, but it’s always an accident because we’re committed to taking care of our partner.”
He continued on to also give his side of the story when it pertains to the pair's training history, saying they only spent a few weeks together back in 2019, and that they only trained with one another a handful of times.
“We just spent a few sessions in three weeks,” Ngannou said. “It was maybe six sessions of training, definitely less than eight. That was back in January 2019, because after I fought Curtis Blaydes in China, I went back to Cameroon and on Christmas I had the Cain Velasquez fight. So, I couldn’t come back to Vegas in time to set up a training camp because the fight was on February 17th. I stopped in France and trained there for one month and at the time Ciryl was there training for his fight, I believe. So, he left even before I left. I think it was three weeks before I left to go for his fight. So after that, I think it was February 3rd, I flew to Phoenix, I was there two weeks before my fight, and that’s it.”
History will be made in the @HondaCenter, ------------ ---- --
— UFC (@ufc) January 20, 2022
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