Former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou scored him some autographed swag after having dinner with soccer icon Cristiano Ronaldo.
In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to absorb Saturday’s extremely anticipated rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury at Kingdom Area, Ngannou revealed in a social media submit that he not solely had dinner with Ronaldo but additionally walked away with a handful of autographed jerseys courtesy of ‘CR7.’
Earlier this yr, Ronaldo sat cageside on the PFL Battle of the Giants pay-per-view to witness Ngannou’s long-awaited return to blended martial arts in opposition to heavyweight knockout artist Renan Ferreira.
Ronaldo Provided Francis Ngannou a number of phrases of encouragement forward of PFL debut
In accordance with Ngannou’s coach Eric Nicksick, ‘El Bicho’ was sitting backstage at one level and insisted on giving ‘The Predator’ a number of phrases of encouragement simply earlier than he made his technique to the Sensible Cage.
“He was so cool and tremendous all the way down to earth,” Nicksick informed MMA Junkie. “He was a brilliant cool man and truly an enormous combating fan, so he had a bunch of questions, he was speaking to me about [Sean] Strickland, this and that, no matter struggle it was. He was actually all the way down to earth after which at one level Francis obtained as much as wrap his palms, and Ronaldo was form of speaking about how he might really feel Francis’ vitality, and he goes, ‘I’m simply going to provide him phrases of encouragement…’
“He was speaking concerning the lack of one among his kids and form of how he associated to that and issues like that. It was form of cool. I understand how large of a star he’s, however sitting subsequent to me and having this very private dialog made him really feel like he was a part of the workforce proper then and there. His son was in there with us and hanging out so it was a really a lot welcomed vitality to have within the room. Particularly somebody of that stature who understands the very best of strain, so it was cool and he was an incredible man” (h/t Bloody Elbow).
Ngannou ended up scoring a dominant first-round TKO in opposition to Ferreria in his PFL debut — an particularly spectacular feat when you think about that he hadn’t competed inside a cage in almost three years.
What’s subsequent for Ngannou stays to be seen, however ‘The Predator’ has left the door open for a return to boxing regardless of going 0-2 with back-to-back losses in opposition to Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
