Dana White shoots down Ngannou vs. Jones (again): ‘Francis is a bad guy’

Ryan Harkness breaks down daily mixed martial arts (MMA) news, providing unique context to stories that only 15 years of obsessing over the sport can provide, having worked for FOX Sports, Yahoo! Sports, UPROXX, MSN, Bleacher Report, HDNet and CagePotato, among others, before joining MMAmania.com in 2017.

Dana White is dusting off some old criticism of Francis Ngannou, declaring the former UFC heavyweight champion is ’a bad guy.’

Ngannou left the UFC with the belt still around his waist after beating Ciryl Gane in January 2022. He turned down multiple offers from the UFC to stay, citing the promotion’s one-sided contracts. In the end, the UFC waived an exclusive negotiation period, declaring they didn’t want to be in business with the ’impossible to work with’ “Predator.”

Since then, Ngannou has gone on to fight in two big-money boxing bouts, a PFL MMA match, and an MVP MMA match. And whenever Francis’ name comes up, White just can’t help but bash the Cameroonian native.

”Ngannou is on my Oscar De La Hoya list,“ White said when asked on Nightcap about a potential Jones vs. Ngannou showdown. “Look at the history of Francis Ngannou and the other companies he’s been with. He’s a bad guy, man. He’s a bad guy, and I’m at a point in my life where I just don’t want to do business with bad guys, you know what I mean? I just don’t.”

White has never given specifics on why Ngannou is a bad guy. There were insinuations that Ngannou would come into the UFC offices and intimidate people with his size. White has even alluded to a physical confrontation with Ngannou during negotiations. It’s nothing that really matches up with what we know of the soft-spoken Francis, but White continues to stick to his narrative.

As Jake Paul’s MVP looks to continue in the MMA space, Ngannou will undoubtedly be one of the big names the company uses to build their profile. We’d expect the Ngannou bashing to continue from White down the line. Will it be more convincing bashing? We’ll see on that front.