Francis Ngannou is officially returning to MMA with the announcement that he’ll fight Renan Ferreira on pay-per-view in the PFL promotion on October 19th at a destination still to be confirmed at this time.
The former UFC heavyweight champion vacated the title and left the promotion in early 2023 in order to pursue his ambition to fight in boxing as well as MMA, and has since gone on to have two blockbuster fights in the ring.
The first was the fight he’d been targeting from the start – a money-spinning clash with boxing heavyweight champion Tyson Fury in October last year, and Ngannou went on to shock the world by flooring the star in the third round before going on to controversially lost by split-decision.
That put Ngannou firmly on the map in the boxing world and led to another high-profile match-up against Anthony Joshua in March, but this time things went badly for ‘The Predator’, who was dropped multiple times on his way to a 2nd round knockout loss.
Prior to signing to fight Fury last year Ngannou had also joined forces with MMA promotion PFL to compete there, and so after taking several months to plot his next move it seems the 37-year-old has decided that the time is now right to return to the sport that first made him a star, and where he currently is riding a six-fight winning streak.
He’ll be going up against the 34-year-old Brazilian, Ferreira, who won PFL’s heavyweight grand-prix last year and has since earned a special ‘PFL vs. Bellator’ super belt after TKO’ing Ryan Bader in just 21 seconds.
Ngannou vs Ferreira won’t be the only big-name fight on the October 19th PFL card though as the PPV event will also feature Bellator featherweight champion Cris Cyborg going up against two-time PFL champion Larissa Pacheco.
