RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Francis Ngannou had a sport’s icon in his locker room forward of his MMA return.
Ngannou (18-3) claimed the inaugural superfight heavyweight title by knocking out Renan Ferreira (13-4) within the first spherical of Saturday’s PFL: Battle of the Giants foremost occasion.
Prior to creating the stroll, Ngannou had Cristiano Ronaldo in his locker room. Eric Nicksick says the soccer icon supplied Ngannou some consolation and help after going via an analogous traumatic expertise.
“He’s tremendous all the way down to earth, tremendous cool man, and he’s really an enormous combat fan,” Nicksick instructed MMA Junkie. “He had a bunch of questions. He was speaking to me about Strickland, he was speaking to me about this and no matter combat it was. At one level Francis acquired as much as wrap his arms and Ronaldo was speaking about that he might really feel Francis’ vitality and he’s like, ‘I’m going to present him phrases of encouragement.’
“He was speaking in regards to the lack of one in every of his youngsters and the way he associated to issues like that. It was fairly cool. I understand how large of a star he’s, however him sitting subsequent to me and having this very private dialog – he felt like he was part of the workforce proper then and there. His son was in there with us and hanging out. It was very a lot a welcomed vitality to have within the room, particularly with somebody of that stature that understands the best of strain. It was cool. He was an awesome man. Very all the way down to earth. Very cool.”
Ronaldo, broadly considered one of many biggest soccer gamers of all time and most well-known celebrities on this planet, has been a longtime MMA fan, beforehand hanging out with the likes of UFC celebrity Conor McGregor.
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