Stipe Miocic Sends a Message to Francis Ngannou With His Record Attached

Stipe Miocic is not intimidated. To the reigning UFC heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou is just another giant man trying to take his head off. The same kind of monster he has faced multiple times before. He’s on the edge of making history, with what the UFC is promoting as his biggest challenge yet just ahead of him. There hasn’t been any trash talk. There hasn’t been any insults. Stipe Miocic is simply letting his record speak for himself, just like his recent Twitter post sending a message to Ngannou.

Andrei Arlovski — RD1 0:54 ✅
Fabricio Werdum — RD1 2:47 ✅
Alistair Overeem — RD1 4:27 ✅
Junior dos Santos — RD1 2:22 ✅
Francis Ngannou — 1/20 #AndStill pic.twitter.com/QPApohmtey

— Stipe Miocic (@stipemiocicufc) January 3, 2018

“Don’t lie, Stipe [Miocic]. Don’t lie [about not being afraid]. I think he’ll try to survive. First of all, this is the game plan. Survive, then whatever I’m going to try, I’m going to catch you. I’m going to connect it. What happens when I connect? Of course, he’s really intimidated. He knows what’s going to happen. I know he’s just making proud here like, ‘Yes, I’m the champ. I’m this, I’m that,’ but he knows the guy that he’s going to fight. He knows that it’s going to be a fight that he’s never had in his career.” — Francis Ngannou at the UFC 220 press conference.

That record is ridiculous. Should Stipe Miocic beat Francis Ngannou, he’ll even break the record for UFC heavyweight title defenses. Which is such a difficult task that the record stands at two defenses. So far, Ngannou’s record can’t really compare with Miocic’s, but he’s trying to catch up. Ngannou has finished Bojan Mihajlovic (RD1 1:34), Anthony Hamilton (RD1 1:57), Andrei Arlovski (RD1 1:32) and most recently knocked out Alistair Overeem in the first round. Will he be able to add Stipe Miocic on that list with hashtag ‘and new’ in Boston on January 20th? We are all waiting to find out.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 1/4/2018.