UFC Heavyweight Champion, Francis Ngannou Admits He Avoided Someone In Viral Backstage Video – But It Wasn’t Ciryl Gane- MMA Junkie

According to UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, he doesn’t have an issue with his former teammate and next opponent Ciryl Gane.

With that in mind, Ngannou (16-3 MMA, 11-2 UFC) feels somewhat bad about the backstage video, that surfaced from the bowels of Madison Square Garden during UFC 268, in which he strutted right past Gane (10-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC), coach Fernandez Lopez, and French welterweight Nassourdine Imavov.

“The only thing that bothers me a little bit (was Gane)… and he was right,” Ngannou recently said in an interview with Daniel Cormier. “I would’ve looked confused. Obviously, as his coach said, he’s naive. I would’ve been confused, too, because if… I walked by Gane, I would say hi. If it’s just him, I’d say, ‘Hi, what’s up?’”

So why did Ngannou avoid not only approaching his former team but acknowledging them at all? According to Ngannou, the problem is between him and his former coach and manager, Lopez.

Lopez, the head coach of MMA Factory in Paris, coached Ngannou during his rise to the UFC and journey toward the title before the duo’s uncongenial split in 2019. Ngannou now trains at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas and is under the management of Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

“I felt like I didn’t want to say hi, for my sake,” Ngannou said. “It’s been a couple of years now that he’s out there… I mean, like, yeah, I want to be nice. But when I saw him in that position, I had a few thoughts. I’m like, ‘OK, should I say hi?’ Then I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’ I might got closer and say hi and then somehow, you’ll hear that I said ‘this,’ which is not what I said. Getting close to him was giving an opportunity for him. Not only the fact that I’m sure that he didn’t need me to say hi, but it was giving him the opportunity to say something again that I didn’t say. I’d rather stay in the distance. … It’s not like we’re friendly. He’s attacking me all the time. I can’t do that. I don’t feel like it.”

Despite his scheduled booking against Gane at UFC 270, Ngannou indicated the matchup did not play a part in the decision to ignore the MMA Factory pack. If Gane was alone, Ngannou said he’d have no problem chatting it up.