Francis Ngannou wanted to fulfill remainder of PFL contract

Francis
Ngannou wanted to fight out his contract with the
Professional Fighters League. 

PFL announced its split with Ngannou earlier this month. This was
immediately followed by the announcement of Ngannou’s booking
against Philipe
Lins on May 16 on MVP’s first MMA card in collaboration with
Netflix. 

Ngannou claims he still had a fight left on his PFL contract, which
he wanted to exhaust. However, the PFL allegedly told Ngannou for a
year that they were working on it. Ngannou also believes the major
changes in the PFL leadership led to a delay in proceedings. While
Ngannou used to previously discuss fight-related matters with
former CEO Peter Murray, he was replaced by John Martin last
year.

Slow Negotiations

“I think I had one fight left, and I was hoping to have that fight
since last year,” Ngannou said on “The
Ariel Helwani Show.” “I’ve been asking for the fight, but they
keep telling me they are working on it… At the same time, a lot of
things were changing in the PFL. And sometimes it was even hard to
know – because I used to talk fight-related [stuff] with Peter
Murray. And then things started to change, and then John [Martin] came around, and the conversation basically had to start all over
again. So kind of slowed the process down.” 

Ngannou (18-3) left the
UFC on a bitter note in 2023 and signed up with the PFL.
However, Ngannou’s highly-anticipated PFL career didn’t exactly pan
out as expected. While Ngannou competed in two massive boxing
matches against Tyson Fury
and Anthony
Joshua, he fought only once in the PFL. “The Predator” defeated
Renan
Ferreira in his lone PFL bout in October 2024. 

Meanwhile, the PFL leadership recently underwent massive changes.
Former CEO Murray was shifted to the PFL’s international wing in
July 2025 and replaced by John
Martin. Murray parted ways with the promotion this past
January. Founder and longtime chairman Donn Davis also left the PFL
in January.