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Francis Ngannou isn't intimated or impressed by his upcoming opponent Jairzinho Rozenstruik. The latter is coming off an impressive last-round knockout of veteran Aleister Overeem.
He was losing the fight on the scorecards but with hardly 10 seconds to spare, he knocked the Dutchman out and immediately called out Ngannou. The Predator doesn't need to take a fight if he doesn't want to.
He has knocked out Curtis Blaydes, Cain Velasquez, and Junior dos Santos en route to earning another title shot, and while he's deserving, he knows he'll have to wait as Daniel Cormier and Stipe Miocic plan to conclude their trilogy this year.
Ngannou has been itching to fight and he told MMA Junkie that he hasn't seen anything from Rozenstruik to impress him. He also claimed that the Overeem fight was stopped early:
“No I haven’t seen nothing to impress me. Regarding that fight against Overeem, I mean, he got beat up the entire fight and he got lucky at the end of the fight basically by the early stoppage. The referee, in my opinion was early and you know, he gave him the win but honestly his UFC career, nothing to impress. I haven’t seen nothing, but with that being said, it’s not to underestimate him because he was a kickboxer and he has some good hands so he knows the striking game. Now let’s find out what he knows about MMA.”
While he isn't underestimating the Surinamese rising contender, he predicts a knockout within round one or two:
“The only way I see the fight going is me knocking him out,” Ngannou said. “Round 1 or Round 2, I don’t know, so I hope he’s good enough to pass Round 1 because Round 1 I’ll just take to set up.”
It's hard to doubt Ngannou when his last three fights all ended with a first-round knockout. Ngannou is the strongest puncher in the division and the odds will be favoring him to secure the victory. Should Rozenstruik win, it'll be a huge upset, but given the incredible new physical shape that Ngannou is in, it's going to be an uphill battle for the Surinamese star.
