Francis Ngannou hopes KO of Stipe Miocic will earn him his “dream” fight

Having knocked Alistair Overeem’s head into orbit in the co-main event of last Saturday’s stacked UFC 218 card, French-Cameroonian slugger Francis Ngannou is now the number one contender in the perilous UFC heavyweight division. He is expected to battle the division’s apex predator, Stipe Miocic, sometime in the next few months – perhaps even as soon as UFC 220, which goes down on January 20 in Boston.

Whenever Ngannou’s fight with Miocic occurs, he’s confident that he’ll come out on top – and that the judges won’t be needed.

“I expect a finish,” Ngannou told Top Turtle MMA (via FloCombat) this week. “Because he’ll probably try a takedown, it might be a submission, but I’ll always predict a KO.”

If Ngannou can pull off a title-winning finish of Miocic, he hopes it’ll open the door for his dream fight: a showdown with Brock Lesnar, which would surely shake the foundations of whatever arena it occurred in.

“My dream? I would like to see a match between me and Brock Lesnar,” Ngannou said.

Ngannou then delved into the appeal of a potential collision with Lesnar.

“You know, two big dudes,” he said. “I like that matchup. I’m excited for that kind of matchup… I want to see that match.”

“He’s big and huge, but he’s not stronger than me,” he continued. “[I’m] the more powerful guy and I’m also a [more] talented guy.”

With his win over Overeem, Ngannou rocketed to 6-0 in the UFC. In this span, he’s dished out public executions of Luis Henrique, Curtis Blaydes, Bojan Mihajlovic, Anthony Hamilton, Andrei Arlovski, and of course, Overeem. The hulking heavyweight’s overall record now stands at 11-1.

Lesnar, meanwhile, has been sidelined by USADA, having failed a drug test after his UFC 200 battle with Mark Hunt. Given that he’s now 40 years old, his battling the surging Francis Ngannou seems like an unlikely development, but let’s all keep our fingers crossed anyway.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 5/12/2017.