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Hey Friends,
Francis Ngannou is one of the toughest people on the planet, both mentally and physically. You probably know him as the UFC Heavyweight Champion of the world—and for good reason. He stands at 6’4” and weighs roughly 285 pounds, and the 36-year-old has become one of the most dominating forces in combat sports history.
“Francis is a guy who has the world record for the most powerful punch,” UFC president Dana White explained in 2018. “His punches are equivalent to 96 horsepower. That's equal to getting hit by a Ford Escort going as fast as it can, and it's more powerful than a 12-pound sledgehammer from full force overhead.”
But the UFC represents only a small part of Francis Ngannou’s story.
For example, Francis was born in Batié, Cameroon. His father was abusive toward his mother, and his parents divorced when he was six years old. Francis and his four siblings then moved several times, jumping from one house to another and often sleeping with 10-15 other family members in a one-bedroom house with a dirt floor.
And since education wasn’t free in Cameroon at the time, Francis barely went to school. Instead, he spent most of his childhood working alongside adults at the sand mine, shoveling massive piles of sand into trucks for less than $2 per day.
But still, Francis always maintained his dream of becoming a world champion.
So he eventually left Cameroon without telling anyone. Not his friends, not his siblings, and not even his mom. But it’s not like he could jump on a plane, take a train, or even afford a bus, so he started walking the 3,000 miles North to Morroco.
The plan was to go from Cameroon to Morocco, through the Sahara Desert, and eventually make his way into Europe after illegally crossing the Spain-Morocco border.
It was such an absurd plan that many wouldn't even believe it as a Hollywood script — and it ended up being just as difficult as you might imagine.
Francis frequently ran into corrupt officers requesting bribes, and he would cover the little money he had in plastic and swallow it so they couldn’t take it. He crossed the Sahara Desert without water in a pickup truck with 25 other people when it was more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit. He slept in the desert, forest, and on a mountain. He ate from the trash, and he spent many nights fearing for his life.
“But what other option did I have — I couldn’t go back,” Francis says.
But getting from Cameroon to Morocco was the easy part.
The land border between Morocco and Spain is very small, and security is notoriously tight to prevent illegal immigration. And worst of all, if you get caught by police, they don’t just throw you in jail — they drop you back in the Sahara desert.
So Francis tried to cross the Morocco-Spain border on foot but was severely cut by barbed wire and had to go to the hospital or risk death by losing too much blood.
He chose the hospital and was dropped back off in the Sahara desert. But this happened six more times — Francis would spend every last dime that he had to travel hundreds of miles to the border, get caught trying to jump the fence or skirt border patrol, and then be transported hours back to the sweltering heat of the Sahara Desert.
Eventually, though, Francis figured out a trick. He hung out at internet cafes in Tangier (a Moroccan port on the Strait of Gibraltar) and used leftover expiring internet time that people left on computers to research and drew up a plan.
And the craziest part is that it worked. Francis covered a $50, four-person boat raft with silver foil (so radars wouldn’t detect it), jumped on the boat with seven other migrants in the middle of the night, and started paddling toward Spanish waters.
He didn’t know how to swim, but it didn’t matter. The silver-foil trick bought him enough time to make it into Spanish waters, where Francis made a rescue call from a flip phone to the Red Cross and was promptly picked up and arrested upon arrival.
“When we got to Spain, for the first while, we kind of relaxed, even though we were in jail. We knew we were going to go to jail when we got there. We would be free after, but we were going to go to jail [first],” Ngannou told Bleacher Report last year.
The rest of the story is more straightforward. Francis initially wanted to make it to Germany, find a gym, and start training to become a boxer. But he ran out of money after taking a train to Paris and decided to settle there instead.
He slept in public spaces and parking garages, and Francis ate whatever food he could find. But eventually, he found a gym and started to train. The owner gave him a place to sleep, convinced him to try MMA instead of boxing, and the rest is history.
Francis made his professional MMA debut after just four months of training, and he didn’t even understand the rules during his first fight. Still, he won and showed so much promise that the UFC called him on his 29th birthday and offered a contract.
And now, after his 14-month journey from Cameroon to Paris and seven years in the UFC, Francis Ngannou is the UFC Heavyweight Champion of the world.
So if Francis Ngannou’s story ended there, it would already be one of the most inspirational stories of personal triumph and achievement in sports history.
But the most insane part is that he’s just getting started.
Francis Ngannou has been in a public dispute with the UFC for several years. He doesn’t like how the contracts are structured — they lock you in for years, dictate when you fight, and classify fighters as independent contractors even though they can’t fight anywhere outside the UFC — and he doesn't think the world’s leading MMA league is sharing enough revenue with its fighters.
For example, while players across the NFL, NBA, and MLB enjoy a ~50/50 revenue split with their league office/owners, UFC fighters receive about 16% of total revenue.
Many fighters are upset about this, of course. But Francis is in a unique position to actually do something about it — he knows what true freedom feels like, he’s financially secure, and he’s willing to sacrifice everything to make sure things change.
For example, Francis says he has already sacrificed more than $10 million by forcing his way into free agency and not extending his contract with the UFC.
So I flew to Las Vegas last week and sat down with Francis Ngannou for an hour. It was one of my favorite conversations ever, and we covered a bunch of topics, including his childhood in Cameroon, his grueling 14-month journey to freedom, the story behind his first UFC contract, how he became World Champion, his fight for higher pay across the sport, his business ventures outside of the UFC, and more.
And yes, Francis even mentioned who he wants to fight next, the hidden details within UFC contracts, and what he thinks of Dana White.
I think you guys are really going to enjoy it. So have a great day, and go check it out on Apple, Spotify, or through the YouTube link below. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.
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If you are not a subscriber of Huddle Up, join 69,000 other professional athletes, business executives & casual sports fans that receive it directly in their inbox each morning — it’s free.
Ngannou's story is absolutely incredible. I wish others could understand the hardships some go through just to have the freedom most inherit at birth. Thank you for sharing this Joseph, you've changed my perspective going into today.