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Francis Ngannou is on a roll right now. He has gone through some of the top-most heavyweights in his last four fights and landed himself a title shot against champion Stipe Miocic. He seems to be in the best form of his career, looking near-unstoppable and living up to his 'The Predator' nickname with every contest.
However, Francis Ngannou was not always the same fighter we see him as today. He suffered his first UFC loss at the hands of Stipe Miocic when they first met at UFC 220 back in January 2018.
Speaking to ESPN's Brett Okamoto in a recent interview ahead of UFC 260, Francis Ngannou reminisced in detail where he felt he went wrong the first time around.
He revealed that he had far less experience in the fighting business back then. He was also uncertain about his future to the point where he didn't even know where he would go once the fight was over:
"The Francis who fought Stipe three years ago, he was almost the same guy. The only difference was his own experience in the business, in the fighting, in the high level competition. I didn't understand anything about it. I still remember I was asking myself - how did it feel to fight three-round fight, like what it looks like? How do they get prepared for title fight? How do their training camp looks like? Even though I didn't have an appropriate one, I had all these questions going on.
"To be honest, I was sitting in my hotel room just before the fight, I was like, 'Okay, what next after this? Where am I going? What am I gonna do? And everything was just so blind. The future was just so blind. I couldn't see anything ahead. He wasn't fun. I couldn't project myself further. Something was there to stop me of like seeing far."
Francis Ngannou cannot recognize the fighter who faced Stipe Miocic in 2018
The mindset that Francis Ngannou went into the fight with clearly had an impact on his performance. Although the fight went all five rounds and ended in a unanimous decision win for Stipe Miocic, Francis Ngannou looked visibly beaten and exhausted before the final bell rung:
"I wasn't in my spot at that specific moment. I didn't find my spot yet. I was kind of like lost, navigating in the air but didn't know exactly where to land."
But the Cameroonian-French heavyweight took it as a learning experience and fixed his vision for the coming months:
"When I try to look... I don't recognize the guy. The guy looks like me, obviously. but for me, it's not me. I'm like, 'What the hell this guy is doing?' But once again, you have to go through certain stuff to understand what it's like."
Francis Ngannou lost one more time after that to Derrick Lewis. He then went on to build a four-fight winning streak, going through Curtis Blaydes, Cain Valesquez, Junior dos Santos and Jairzinho Rozenstruik to consequently land himself another shot at the title.
