Heavyweight star Francis Ngannou’s next fight will be in MMA as he’s just signed up to fight Philipe Lins in the co-main event of the Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano show on May 16th in Los Angeles, which will air live on Netflix.

The 39-year-old Ngannou left the UFC back in 2022 after his first successful heavyweight title defense against Ciryl Gane and went on to sign a deal with the PFL promotion instead, which enabled him to compete in both MMA and boxing.

That paved the way for a blockbuster boxing match between Ngannou and Tyson Fury in 2023, where ‘The Predator’ almost delivered a massive upset when he dropped the boxing ace early in the fight, before ultimately losing via a controversial split-decision.

Ngannou then landed another high-profile boxing bout against Anthony Joshua in 2024, but that didn’t go well at all for him, suffering several knockdowns on his way to a 2nd round KO loss.

Later that year Ngannou returned to MMA for his first PFL fight, and won convincingly with a 1st round KO of Renan Ferreira.

Ngannou wasn’t seen at all in 2025, but now after PFL announced that the two had parted ways he’s quickly moved to land his next fight, though this time he won’t be the headline attraction.

Ngannou will be going up against another former UFC fighter in the 40-year-old Lins, who actually suffered back-to-back defeats at the start of his time in the Octagon in 2020.

However, Lins then switched down to light-heavyweight and rebounded with a four-fight winning streak, beating the likes of Ovince Saint Preux and Ion Cutelaba along the way.

Despite that, Lins was released from the UFC in 2024 and went on to sign for Global Fights League, before it’s collapse the following year.

Lins hasn’t fought since and will now be moving back up to heavyweight for what will be his first fight in over two years.