Francis Ngannou: UFC’s Best Heavyweight Prospect in Years

UFC on FOX 23 was sort of a coming out party of sorts for surging heavyweight prospect Francis Ngannou. The budding heavyweight was given a much bigger platform to go out and perform after his win in the co-main event at UFC Fight Night 102. It seems fight after fight, Ngannou continues to over-perform, and has become the best looking prospect the UFC heavyweight division has seen in quite some time.

In my last column, I wrote about the heavyweight dilemma heavyweight MMA faces in general. A lot of the top guys are getting older and wear and tear is setting in. There is not a lot in the way of fresh faces and young up-and-coming prospects for the division to take over. However, one major exception to that argument is Francis Ngannou. In just a little over a year, Ngannou has become one of the scariest and most dangerous looking heavyweights that is rising through the division right now.

It’s hard to believe Ngannou only started training and fighting in MMA about three and a half years ago. His original goal appeared to be a career in boxing before his coach steered him to MMA. Since his Octagon debut in December 2005, he’s now gone 5-0 in the UFC. In his last fight on FOX, Ngannou demolished Andrei Arlovski; a former UFC heavyweight champion. It was the biggest name Ngannou had faced yet, and he made it look absolutely effortless. Unlike some other heavyweights, he’s not a soft-looking guy at the midsection and carrying around extra baggage. He looked like he was in fantastic shape for the Arlovski fight, which is important since he was fighting at such a high elevation in Denver.

Now, there are still plenty of challenges for Ngannou to face, and there are plenty of questions around him as well. His earlier UFC fights were against lesser fighters and smaller names. Andrei Arlovski was a much bigger name for him, but Arlovski also hasn’t been looking great lately. He was already on a three-fight losing streak going into his bout with Ngannou. Arlovski has come back from such slumps before with a vengeance, but Ngannou didn’t win against a top contender here. Ngannou is scary because he has such heavy hands that can end the fight with one punch. That uppercut that put Arlovski on the ground was nasty. But, the question is if he can deal with takedowns and tougher wrestlers, such as Cain Velasquez.

Regardless, it’s nice to finally see such an exciting prospect like Ngannou. No fighter in the weight class has really had such a strong early start like Ngannou where he was just demolishing people left and right. Even Stipe Miocic, who looked very promising early in his UFC career, had to go through some growing pains before he made it to the heavyweight title. He lost his fourth UFC fight to Stefan Struve by knockout. Plus, he had to battle the perception of being a more technical [*coughboringcough*] and grinding fighter before the UFC brass saw fit to offer him a title shot. Ngannou’s striking and boxing skills do seem highly reminiscent of a younger Junior dos Santos, who came out of nowhere and started dropping his opponents left and right.

So, the UFC seems to be bringing Ngannou along at a gradual pace, and that seems to be a smart move. Hopefully, this will give Ngannou time to improve his overall skill set for when he does have to face higher levels of competition. His field is only going to get a lot tougher from here. I think Stefan Struve would be a good test for Ngannou next. Struve is a longtime veteran, and he’s actually coming off two wins in his last fight. Struve is a pretty battle-tested veteran, and believe it or not, he’s even younger than Ngannou at age 28. Now, some might say Ngannou is a terrible match-up for Struve, and that might be true. Or it might be protecting Ngannou. On one hand, I don’t mind Ngannou being protected so much. When you have such an exciting prospect for Ngannou, I don’t mind if he’s brought along a little slower. I believe part of the issue is letting a prospect like Ngannou get more fights and more experience on a big stage, which he seems to be doing well at before throwing him against the top five guys. Believe it or not, that was the strategy with Jon Jones, and it was a strategy that worked very well. It’s not always exact, but some fans did complain when Jones was getting matched up against the likes of Vladimir Matyushenko and Brandon Vera. After a few fights, Jones was getting a lot of interest and hype, and fans wanted to see him fight bigger names. However, those fights were important because it let Jones fight some longtime UFC veterans, he crushed them and looked good doing it. Those are resume builders, and it’s not so terrible for fighters to have resume building fights. Thinking long-term, if Ngannou can become as great a fighter as he looks right now, it makes sense to give him at least one more resume building fight before he’s thrown into the title mix.

Either way, Ngannou is looking scarier and scarier with each passing fight. It wouldn’t be surprising if he finds himself in the title picture sooner rather than later.

Jeffrey Harris is 411mania’s resident Jack of All Trades and has covered MMA for the site since 2008. You can shoot him an e-mail at [email protected] or hit him up on Facebook. He also co-hosts the 411 Ground & Pound Radio podcast along with Robert Winfree. You can listen to the latest episode of the podcast in the player below.