Manchester United is all in for Francis Ngannou! The Cameroonian-French mixed martial artist turned boxer takes on Anthony Joshua a few hours from now in an event being termed as ‘Knockout Chaos’. Going into the fight, Ngannou is counting on support from all his well-wishers. This also includes football team, Manchester United. A few hours back, Manchester United took to Instagram to show their support for Francis Ngannou.
The club posted a series of pictures of players such as Marcus Rashford and Raphael Varane interacting with Ngannou. This was during the off-season when United played a few games in the Allegiant stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada. The caption on the post said,
“When the Reds met Francis in Las Vegas.”
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For the uninitiated, Manchester United is one of the biggest football clubs in the world. The club, based out of Manchester in the United Kingdom, holds a record 20-first division titles and 3 UEFA Champions League titles to its name. The club also has a whopping 63.3 million followers on Instagram to which it shared a post supporting Ngannou. ‘The Predator’ replied on the post saying,
“As I said, Man U’s favorite heavyweight boxer.”
In the comment, Ngannou asserted himself as Manchester United’s favorite heavyweight boxer. This comment was in a sly dig to Tyson Fury as Manchester United is the team that he supports. The fight between Ngannou and Joshua is set to take place in Riyadh on a Friday. This is due to the fact that the country is hosting an F1 race on Saturday night and they did not want the two events to clash. Therefore, the ring walks for the fight will take place at around 6 p.m. ET and 3 p.m. PT.
After putting on an impressive performance against Tyson Fury, Ngannou made his case to secure a fight against another top heavyweight, Anthony Joshua. For ‘The Predator’, the fight is about more than just a mind-boggling payday. It is a chance to realize a lifelong dream.
Francis Ngannou to earn more than 30x his last UFC purse
‘The Predator’ Francis Ngannou recently joined Henry Cejudo and Kamaru Usman for a podcast, Pound 4 Pound With Kamaru and Henry. During the interview, he spoke about his last fight in the UFC. ‘The Predator’ stated that he earned a mere $600,000 for title defense against Ciryl Gane. While that is a huge sum, it is nothing in comparison to what he is set to earn against Joshua.
Francis Ngannou went from making $600K in his final fight with the #UFC, to making $20 million (not factoring PPV points) to fight Anthony Joshua.
Talk about betting on yourself
(#JoshuaNgannou purses via. @Independent) #Boxing #MMA pic.twitter.com/yIC7gAqNzz
— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) March 7, 2024
According to reports, Ngannou is set to earn a whopping $20 million before PPV revenue for his fight against Anthony Joshua. This sum is more than 33 times the purse for his last UFC fight. It is safe to say that Ngannou made the right call by betting on himself in the long-run and parting ways with the UFC.
