Ray Sefo wraps the PFL Super Fights belt around Francis Nagano’s waist.PFL
Heading into Saturday’s PFL card, Francis Ngannou was the reigning MMA heavyweight champion, which was more important than a lot of people realized. I think so Eric McGrathA lawyer specializing in war games said it best in X.
“A line claim that follows the fighter,” he explained. “It doesn’t belong to a promoter. It belongs to the fighter. The real title. Francis earned it. It’s his until somebody beats him.”
In addition to the lineal MMA title, Encano’s main event fight is with Renon Ferreira Also Decide Lineal UFC, PRIDE, Strikeforce, Bellator, DreAM, IFL, EliteXC, WAMMA and YAMMA pit fighting heavyweight titles. Make no mistake about it: this fight was for MMA’s true heavyweight crown, as opposed to all the UFC promotional material for next month’s Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic tells us in the title fight.
Nagano is the sole owner of that crown.
As he had done many times before, the Cameroonian Frenchman destroyed his opponent quickly and brutally, first taking him down with an advanced grappling move and then finishing with a rain of punches on the ground. There have been meteor strikes.
It was an impressive performance, not least because Nagano’s boxing career kept him out of the MMA cage for years, but more so because he lost his young son Kobe before the fight.
“The last two days have been really hard,” a tearful Nagano said in a post-fight interview. “The emotion was overwhelming and I couldn’t do anything without thinking of him.
“I hope they remember his name. Without Kobe, I wouldn’t be here tonight.”
“Please remember son Gobyal.”
Today, MMA fans will no doubt remember Kobe, his father, as the true king of the sport’s most dangerous weight division and a man who accomplished incredible feats in the face of unimaginable challenges.
