When Francis Ngannou claimed he spars with women and sparked a shocked reaction from Laura Sanko 

Former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou once claimed that he spars with women which astonished Laura Sanko.

Ngannou parted ways with the UFC following his first title defense against Ciryl Gane at UFC 270. In the build-up to the fight, a video footage of a 2019 sparring session between 'The Predator' and Gane went viral.

The video led to a heated back and forth between the two and Ngannou claimed that in other videos which were not released, he knocked down Gane with a left high kick. In a press conference ahead of their fight, the Frenchman alleged that 'The Predator' hit him hard despite having agreed to engage in a technical spar.

Responding to Gane, Ngannou made a rather shocking remark and suggested that he spars with women and they don't complain. He said (H/T talkSPORT):

"You say I don’t do technical sparring? I spar with 155lber, I spar with girls and they don’t complain. Obviously, it was a good sparring, he’s not lying about that, but you went down on that."

Reacting to the comments made by Ngannou, UFC analyst Laura Sanko had this to say during the UFC 270 weigh-in show:

“It’s very messy. I came away from that presser also wondering – What woman is sparring Francis Ngannou? When he was like, ‘I spar girls.’ And my mind went, ‘Who? Wait, what? That’s a big girl.’”

Catch Laura Sanko's comments about Francis Ngannou sparring girls below (50:33):

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Eddie Hearn confirms Francis Ngannou vs. Anthony Joshua boxing matchup

After parting ways with the UFC, Francis Ngannou was seen in action for the first time back in October last year against Tyson Fury. Despite having his chances ruled out by many, Ngannou put on a rather impressive performance but ended up losing a controversial split decision.

While there was a lot of speculation surrounding Ngannou's next fight, it has been confirmed that 'The Predator' will be taking on former boxing heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua next. Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn took to X recently to confirm the news and said:

"Tonight we confirm it’s a Done Deal! @anthonyjoshua v @francis_ngannou collide on a huge night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - press conference Jan 15 in London with full details dropping soon!"