Francis Ngannou: From working in mines at 10 to becoming the Strongest Man Alive
What defines greatness, what does it take to achieve greatness? To have a dream, be wild enough to chase that dream, to fight for it, risk everything even your life for it, that passion, madness, when combined with sheer hard work, is indeed a perfect recipe for greatness.
UFC 260 was a much-awaited event for me, the title card(main fight) for the night was going to be between Stipe Miocic(the ruling UFC World Heavyweight Champion) and Francis Ngannou(the challenger). The winner of this fight would be crowned as UFC World Heavyweight Champion, which means this individual is undoubtedly the strongest man alive(and yes I mean stronger than World Strongman, Mr. Olympia or any Boxer for that sake). But then there will always be someone holding this title, so why was this fight so special. It was Francis and his journey that made this fight so special.
Childhood
Born in 1986 in a small town called Batié in Cameroon(a country in Central Africa), the world around Francis was much different from any of the developed nations like USA, UK, or even the developing ones like India. When talking about his childhood in one of the interviews Francis said,
“I hated this place growing up…I hated the sand mine, everything, I hated my life… I started to work in mines at 10 years old. That’s how I grew up. We had to work to contribute at home to buy oil, to buy food and also for our scholarship, for our books. You work sometimes and they don’t pay you right away.”
“I grew up with this frustration and I was always expecting somebody to come there and do something. I don’t know who but you know just come there and do something.”
“I was a dreamer, I was very ambitious. I’m like I want this. [My family would say] ‘You are not that class of life. You don’t belong to that class, and you can’t do it.’ I’m like, why? Why? ‘You have to be a farmer like your dad, you have to do this like your grandpa.’”
“Basically, when I came up with my dream to become a boxer, they’re like, ‘what the fuck is that? How is that possible for you? Look at you, look at where you came from.’”
The Journey
At age 22, Francis left Batie for Cameroon’s largest city of Douala, where he began studying boxing while working part-time jobs. After just a few years though, Ngannou knew he’d outgrown what was possible even in Douala. He made plans to leave Cameroon for France, believing it was his only chance to get the right training he’d need to make it big as a fighter. The people around him made fun of the idea, warning Ngannou not to get his hopes up.
He started his journey, first from Cameron to Morocco, traveling in trains, trucks amd walking for miles, a one-year long journey in illegal situations, crossing borders. At times, border security forces of countries like Niger, Algeria would catch and search him strip-naked demanding for bribe. Since he was travelling with very limited amount of money and had a long journey ahead, he would hide his money by wrapping it in a polythene, swallowing it and then later vomiting it back. When every other citizen of Cameroon had given up on their dreams and were living a complacent life, Francis was risking it all to achieve his dream. Most of the times during his journey, he was living in the bush and collecting food from the trash.
“We would have to go to the market at night time to go find food in the trash. Sometimes you’d argue with a rat in the trash — ‘Get away from this tomato, it’s mine, this rotten tomato is mine, not yours’.”
After reaching Morocco he crossed the Mediterranean Sea, entering Spain illegally, where he was arrested, jailed for 2 months before being released, continuing his journey north to Paris. Reaching Paris, as he was homeless, he was sleeping in parking lots in cold winters. And then he walked into the gym and said ‘‘Look, guys, I really want to do this but I don’t have no money even no clothes nothing no place to sleep but I just want somewhere that I can train.” That’s how the training started. With the right support-system, infrastructure, training camps he harnessed his madness to become the fiercest, strongest Heavyweight Mixed Martial Artist.
Present
28 Mar 2021, 05:00 am BST, sitting comfortably on my couch, having stayed awake the whole night, I was thrilled, excited, and energized for an event I had waited for, the main card of UFC 260, Francis Ngannou vs Stipe Miocic. Francis had a history with Stipe. The last time he faced Stipe it was 3 years ago in 2018 and had resulted in a loss, Stipe had since been a title defender and heavyweight champion for 3 years now. But this time, it was going to be different, I could sense it in the body language, confidence level, and the conditioning. And so the fight began. First-round went by and Francis was hitting hard securing a higher striking rate. Second round started with Francis connecting a few good punches to Stipe, then he landed a powerful combination of jabs and cross but Stipe narrowly survived.
And then came this perfectly placed left hook, a punch which can easily kill a normal human(f.y.i Francis holds the world record for most powerful punch which is equivalent to 96 horsepower) , resulting in a Knock Out(KO), one last punch honouring years of sacrifice, sheer-madness, determination, bestowing upon him the greatness he deserved, declaring the new UFC Heavyweight Champion of the World, Francis Ngannou.
Francis is building a foundation in Cameron in individual capacity, to help kids to have a dream, to believe in their dream, to have a purpose in life.
“Today, it seems normal in my village if a kid says, ‘I’m going to do boxing.’ They say, ‘Yes, it is possible because Francis did it.’ A lot of children now in Cameroon, because of me, have a dream. They say, ‘I will be a champion in MMA. I will do boxing like Francis,’ because they saw me when I was young. I didn’t have anything. I didn’t have any opportunity. And today, when they see me, and they are dreaming. They are thinking that something is possible. Even when they are so poor, something is possible in life… It’s not easy. It is so hard, but it’s possible.” — Francis Ngannou
