UFC heavyweight Francis Ngannou has the most frightening strikes in mixed martial arts. His ground game is less intimidating. During a recent JRE MMA podcast, commentator Joe Rogan questioned whether Ngannou had prepared adequately for the ground, or at all.
However, during an interview with Jim Edwards for MMANytt, Ngannou’s head coach Fernand Lopez defended The Predator’s grappling.
I think people should go check the fight again,” sadi Lopez. “Francis spent three minutes throwing heavy punches without hitting the target and he wasted a lot of energy. After that, he got taken to the ground and he was in the cross mount.
“At that position, when you have a heavy wrestler on your back and you really have a very little small amount of moves you can make from there. Even if you check the highest level events of grappling, with legit black belts, you will see they wait on their back waiting for the guy on top to make a move because you cannot do anything if the guy is blocking you on the ground. We saw Stipe keeping Francis on the ground and only sometimes throw a hammer with the left hand. There wasn’t room to get inside to get the underhook.
“What I’m trying to say is that if Francis didn’t know what he was doing on the ground, how come Stipe, who has way more experience in professional MMA and who has vicious ground and pound, how come Stipe didn’t finish Francis on the ground if Francis didn’t know what he was doing? The fight was on the ground nearly 80% of the time. So how come he didn’t finish him?
“Francis has a good ground game and if you check at the end of the fourth round, Francis went for a heel hook and it made Stipe run away. Francis could’ve stood up, but he didn’t have enough energy, that’s why he just laid down. We spent a lot of time working on his ground game with legit black belts. We spent time in Vegas and he was working with Vinny Magalhaes. He showed very good things. Stipe had head control, but he didn’t finish him. Stipe had a guillotine, but he didn’t finish him. Stipe escaped a heel hook from Francis – when was the last time you saw a heavyweight go for a heel hook? It’s not fair to say he didn’t work his ground game. He did. It’s not fair to say that Francis didn’t work his wrestling. He did. Wrestling isn’t just about attacking, it’s about defending and he showed good things on that.
You also cannot blame the cardio. There’s not a single heavyweight who goes into a fight like that. He spent so much energy in the first and second round he couldn’t make it 25-minutes. We had the gameplan, but we didn’t implement it. I just don’t know what happened there. … Francis was in the pocket every time that Stipe shot in and he simply shouldn’t have been there.
The corner also received criticism for using towels to cool down the fighter, but it turns out the towels had been soaked in ice water, and thus are presumably an effective means of reducing heat, perhaps more so given Ngannou’s size (he cut to make 265) than an ice bag.
