Francis Ngannou believes he’s already earned title shot

Francis Ngannou was expected to battle Jairzinho Rozenstruik at the recently canceled UFC 249 card. While this was a massive fight for the division, Ngannou feels he’s already earned another crack at UFC heavyweight champ Stipe Miocic.

Ngannou, who is riding consecutive knockout wins over Curtis Blaydes, Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos, opened up on this topic on BJPENN.com’s Inside The Cage.

“What do I believe? I believe I should be fighting for the title right now.”

Francis Ngannou says he feels he should currently be fighting for the UFC heavyweight title.

Full interview: https://t.co/PU63Z9Rhfq pic.twitter.com/If4uioZJ0W

— Mike Pendleton (@MP2310) April 9, 2020

“What do I believe? I believe that I should be fighting for a title right now,” Ngannou said confidently. “I thought after Stipe-DC, I would be the one in line, that’s what I believed. Now I’m here, I’m about to do this fight [against Rozenstruik] which is not for the title or an interim title. The point is, it’s not my call. I don’t decide what it’s going to be regardless what my thought is about what is fair, once again it’s not my call so I just do what I have to do. I truly believe that I was in the spot to fight for the title, that’s my thought.”

Back at UFC 220 in January of 2018, Ngannou faced Miocic in his first title opportunity, but came up short, losing a unanimous decision. Following his fight against Miocic, Ngannou dropped a second-straight fight to Derrick Lewis, but made a huge turnaround as he reeled off his current three-fight winning streak.

It’s hard to argue against Francis Ngannou’s claim for a heavyweight title shot given his recent run, and a win at UFC 249 likely would have made his claim undebatable.

Do you think Francis Ngannou deserves another crack at heavyweight gold?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.com on 4/13/2020.