Did Lopez screw up convincing Francis to do MMA instead of boxing?

[Tweak896]

Boxing is sort of shady. If you don't play their rules, they will block you out from a path to the title. In the UFC, especially HW, a few wins and they are forced to give you title shot. I can guarantee that if Ngannou would dispute contracts with boxing promoters like he did UFC he'd get blacklisted before stardom. They play ball with boxers they know they own.

 

[mudrubble]

Francis wanted to do boxing inc he arrived to France. If I am right Lopez convinced him to do MMA. He obviously is one of the all time greats, but if he started with boxing he could earn more and who knows how far he could go? Just loose thought. I don't know what to think about his fight with Fury, very confusing to me

Screw up? He was told it was the fastest way to a championship and it was.

And now Francis' entire future is well positioned. I don't think he's regretting anything!

 

[HHJ]

Francis got popular through the UFC. Not sure that would have happened had he started off in boxing

This

 

[Miokink026]

Lopez is an MMA trainer. If he hadn't convinced Ngannou to do MMA Ngannou might've (reasonably) left him for an actual boxing gym down the line.

I don't think Lopez is a good trainer though. Ngannou under him had only okay technique, it was mostly his natural power and chin. Even the talented Ciryl Gane was already a good striker before he was convinced by Lopez to do MMA, and Lopez really didn't round out his game at all. Imavov is seemingly Lopezs only fighter he nurtured from the start.

 

[wufabufa]

I don't think so. Talent wise HW boxing has been at an all time low for a while .....but HW MMA is still worse. The path to the top of an MMA division is still much clearer than in boxing. Francis was able to pivot at the right time because of his MMA notoriety

 

[joeson]

Lopez is an MMA couch, agent and promoter . How was he going to make anything off Ngannou if he went to boxing?

 

[nostradumbass]

Of course not. Tyson Fury said the money Ngannou was complaining about getting in the UFC is more than what he got to beat Klitschko, and that's being undefeated 7 years into his career. Usyk made $50k to win the cruiserweight title.



"To make $600k for a fight for the heavyweight championship is about what I got paid to fight Klitschko," Fury revealed, refuting long-standing reports that he earned as much as £4million for the bout. "It's not that low, I think to win the heavyweight championship and go on and defend it you've got to take on some big names and create a name and fan following."

"$600,000 is his biggest purse and $600,000 is a hell of a lot of money," Fury also noted during the appearance. "But not for the heavyweight champion of the world, it's not that much. If I was to try and earn $600,000 in a normal nine-to-five job, it would probably take me about 452 years.

 

[IronGolem007]

I would say Francis Ngannou's story is playing out perfectly, exactly as it is.

He could have easily been decimated, coming in green, trying to make his way up the ranks in boxing.

 

[rakeleaves]

Francis would have been a nobody if he stayed with boxing. And that’s the one part I really hate about this shit. If these people were actual boxers. We wouldn’t know their names. And yet they are cashing in on the names they made in the UFC.

They don’t deserve these fights. Boxing thinks mma fighters are a joke. And for the most part they are, in BOXING. Especially with shit like the Pauls. They never put in what real boxers had to. Yes, training seriously for a few years is no joke. But they are a joke in boxing.

UFC names.. Internet personalities.. You Tubers.

But when the lowest rung of boxing pays worse than the UFC does. I bet people that have spent years upon years trying to be real boxers. And they see people put in one TC of boxing getting paid more than they will make in their entire lifetimes. That must seem very unfair.

Ngannou would be a nobody if he did not get into mma. If you don’t understand that. I don’t know what to say.

Lopez is the reason Ngannou is what he is.

You have been trashing Francis at every turn ever since his fallout with the UFC. Must be real hard for you to eat crow when you refuse to do it.

 

[doggo]

No he was right.
If he had been to boxing in France he would have had the same career as this guy:
https://boxrec.com/en/box-pro/521513

HW pro since 2009, undefeated, and yet a complete nobody. He recently went to kickboxing because his boxing career was stuck.

Dude only fought in France though, kinda his fault or his managements it seems.

Depends on available funds i guess...

 

[FlyingDeathKick]

Boxers basically never crossover, Ngannou being able to do both sports made him even bigger. Of course he could have crushed a bunch of dudes in boxing too and probably made his way to the title tho.

 

[BigDramaShow26]

I highly doubt it ends the same way for Francis if he boxes. He got a shortcut to the top. It's heavyweight boxing, anything can happen. I'm not gonna sit here and say Francis can beat every top 20 heavyweight boxer. Guys like Fury, Wilder, Joshua all had privelage in boxing and got fed easy fights for years. Francis wouldn't have gotten that.

 

[daniel san]

I don't think Ngannou would have been able to fight his way to a title shot (or fighting the current champ) in boxing so going with MMA, becoming the HW champ, and then cross over to boxing was most likely the best choice. It's not like Ngannou all of a sudden is a terrific boxer, but rather that HW is weak and Fury underestimated Ngannou. It's also tricky for a boxer to face someone who can bang, who has some skills, but is going to be far more unpredictable due to not having the same 1,000,000 repetition fundamentals.