Former UFC heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou has accused Anthony Joshua’s promotion team and organizers of aiding AJ’s victory over him in Saudi Arabia.
During his appearance on ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast, Francis Ngannou detailed a series of incidents, including disruptive media schedules, unexpected delays, and other issues during the fight week.
He claimed that he was ill-treated and that Joshua’s promotion team employed unfair tactics to give Joshua an edge in their fight.
According to Ngannou, the British boxing promoters deliberately disrupted his preparation schedule, making him wait for long periods during media sessions, and causing significant delays on the day of the fight.
Ngannou also described how he arrived at the arena hours before the scheduled fight time, only to be informed of a significant delay, which he found extremely disruptive to his pre-fight routine.
“A producer comes into the locker room and says, ‘Oh, guy, we are running late on the broadcast. Now we’re going to go around 1:45.’ I’m like, okay, 1:45. It’s 10:45. Three hours. Okay,” he said.
Note that this is not the first time the Cameroonian has made this allegation. He has earlier alleged that Joshua’s team used tricks on him ahead of the bout and AJ’s boxing promoter, Eddie Hearn has criticized him for the comment.
Meanwhile, Ngannou has made it clear that he doesn’t blame Joshua personally for these incidents, but he pointed fingers at the organizing bodies for the ill-treatment. He specifically mentioned Queensbury Promotions and Matchroom Boxing [AJ’s Promoters] as the sources of the disruptive scheduling emails and delays.
“This is definitely not on him (Joshua), because he wasn’t the guy that was sending all those emails, organizing. So I’m not blaming him for anything. But the organisation did quite some stuff that wasn’t fair,” Ngannou noted.
Despite the allegation, Ngannou acknowledged Joshua’s skills and emphasized that he was not blaming Joshua for the ill-treatment. He said, “Not to say Anthony Joshua couldn’t beat me. I think if there’s somebody that you can lose against, he’s the guy; he’s one of the best doing it.”
Following the boxing match, Francis Ngannou is now focusing on MMA and is preparing for a fight against Renan Ferreira in the Professional Fighters League.
