{"id":37062,"date":"2026-03-06T07:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T07:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/news\/news\/PFL-announces-release-of-former-heavyweight-king-Francis-Ngannou-200351"},"modified":"2026-03-06T07:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T07:10:12","slug":"pfl-announces-release-of-former-heavyweight-king-francis-ngannou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/pfl-announces-release-of-former-heavyweight-king-francis-ngannou\/","title":{"rendered":"PFL announces release of former heavyweight king Francis Ngannou"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/pfl-announces-release-of-former-heavyweight-king-francis-ngannou.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"\/><\/div>\n<p><a rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/organizations\/Professional-Fighters-League-12241\"><br \/>\nProfessional Fighters League<\/a> made groundbreaking news in 2023<br \/>\nwhen it signed former <a rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/organizations\/Ultimate-Fighting-Championship-2\"><br \/>\nUltimate Fighting Championship<\/a> heavyweight king <a rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/fighter\/Francis-Ngannou-152341\">Francis<br \/>\nNgannou<\/a> to a contract.<\/p>\n<p>After signing with PFL and the nearly unprecedented career<br \/>\nflexibility it offered, Ngannou competed in two high-level marquee<br \/>\nboxing matches against <a rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/fighter\/Tyson-Fury-361781\">Tyson Fury<\/a><br \/>\nand <a rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/fighter\/Anthony-Joshua-356779\">Anthony<br \/>\nJoshua<\/a> before making his mark inside and outside of the<br \/>\nSmartCage.<\/p>\n<div id=\"adViAi\">\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> Helping launch the PFL Africa brand, which has given opportunities<br \/>\nto top talent on the continent, Ngannou served as chairman. Now,<br \/>\nafter setting the table for a new generation, PFL and Ngannou are<br \/>\nheaded separate ways.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday morning, PFL released a statement announcing it has<br \/>\nreleased Ngannou, who competed once for the league, picking up a<br \/>\nfirst-round technical knockout of <a rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/fighter\/Renan-Ferreira-181493\">Renan<br \/>\nFerreira<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Professional Fighters League has made the decision to part<br \/>\nways with Francis Ngannou,\u201d a PFL representative said in a release.<br \/>\n\u201cWe have great respect for Francis as both an athlete and a person,<br \/>\nand we wish him success in the next chapter of his combat sports<br \/>\ncareer. The PFL remains focused on recruiting and signing the best<br \/>\nathletes in the sport while continuing to deliver world-class<br \/>\ncompetition for fans around the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ngannou is now free to test combat sports free agency.<br \/>\nOpportunities will likely be present in boxing and mixed martial<br \/>\narts, and he\u2019s now contractually free to do as he chooses. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professional Fighters League made groundbreaking news in 2023 when it signed former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight king Francis Ngannou to a contract. After signing with PFL and the nearly unprecedented career flexibility it offered, Ngannou competed in two high-level marquee boxing matches against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua before making his mark inside and outside [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-martial-arts-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}