Eric Nicksick spoke to Middle Easy exclusively about what the future holds for Francis Ngannou.
The world is waiting to see what will be next for former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou. Since failing to come to an agreement with the UFC, Ngannou has left the organization and become a free agent. He will have the opportunity to sign on to fight anyone or join any other promotion he would like. It seems that Ngannou has been leaning toward a move to boxing now that he is free of the UFC.
Before he was released from his contract, Ngannou had wanted to have the freedom to pursue a career in boxing. He wanted that to be a part of his contract, but that agreement was not something the UFC was willing to give. Now that he is a free agent, his coach and friend Eric Nicksick believes that it would make the most sense to try that avenue now. He spoke about this and more in an exclusive interview.
“When it comes to the money standpoint, that was something we talked about too” he said. “He’s like if I fight Jon Jones I make X, if I lose to Jon Jones my next fight I make X and Y and he goes but if I go and box then I make triple the money that I would have made fighting these so just all these things came up. For him, the next move should be boxing, you know, so that’s kind of what I think he’s looking at right now, and he’s gonna weigh all of his options when he gets back home.”
Eric Nicksick thinks there are a few names that make sense for Ngannou’s boxing debut
It is not enough to simply take a boxing match, Nicksick thinks that to make the most out of it and make the departure with the UFC worth the while, it has to be a big name matched up with Ngannou. Nicksick knows the risk his friend has taken by giving up his UFC title and betting on himself. He thinks it will all work out in the end.
“I think it really has to do with the opponent if he does go and box which opponent makes the most amount of sense and I think that obviously the big three make a lot of sense,” he said. “Where it’d be Wilder, Anthony Joshua, and Tyson Fury, so you know if he goes out and decides to box one of these guys I don’t think there’s any shame in losing to any of them in a boxing match. I don’t think it devalues you very much but if you go out and box somebody that really doesn’t have the name value or name recognition then yeah, I think it really devalues the leverage that you had prior to leaving the UFC.”
Nicksick had said previously that the UFC was going to knock down Ngannou’s pay structure drastically if he lost the proposed bout against Jon Jones. At least now Ngannou controls his own destiny and could be making more in the boxing world. There has been an interest at least from Fury to face Ngannou in boxing.
Watch the entire interview here:
