Junior Dos Santos Believes He ‘Gave’ Francis Ngannou The Win
Former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos believes he gave Francis Ngannou the win after making a grave error during their fight.
The two hard-hitting heavyweights met in the UFC Minneapolis headliner last night (Sat. June 29, 2019). The fight, however, only lasted over a minute as Ngannou ended up getting the knockout victory after catching Dos Santos, who had crucially missed with an overhand right.
It served as a reminder to everybody as to just how powerful “The Predator” was, as if it needed any more reminding. And while the narrative leading up to the fight was about Ngannou’s power, “Cigano” couldn’t outright say if he was surprised by it during the contest.
Instead, he believes it was his missed overhand right that led to him getting finished rather than the power of Ngannou:
“Not really,” Dos Santos said when asked if he was surprised by Ngannou’s power during the post-fight press conference. “Actually, it’s a big mistake when you think you know what’s going to happen in the fight. Because you never know what’s going to happen in a fight. This is the hardest sport in the world, especially this division.
“I cannot tell you his power surprised me. I don’t want to take any credit from him but I kind of gave him that victory. Because why did I throw that overhand right and get closer to him? Give him the chance to answer. That’s what he does. Every time you miss a chance on him, he’s right there to reply to that. So it was a big mistake. Like I said, I did it in the fight with Derrick Lewis but I was able to come back. This time, it didn’t work.”
Do you think the fight could have gone differently had JDS not made that mistake? Or was he bound to be caught sooner or later?
