Dana White Admits He Wanted Francis Ngannou to Lose at UFC 270

Dana White has never pretended to like Francis Ngannou. Now he’s gone a step further and admitted he actively rooted against him on one of the biggest nights of the heavyweight’s career.

Speaking on Big Boy, the UFC president was asked when he last really wanted a fighter to lose. He didn’t hesitate.

“A guy that I wanted to lose… it would have to be Francis Ngannou,” White said. “Damn right I wanted Ngannou to lose.”

The fight in question: UFC 270 in January 2022, when Ngannou defended his undisputed heavyweight title against former teammate Ciryl Gane. It was billed as a technical striker against the most feared puncher in the sport, a passing-of-the-torch possibility for the division.

White wanted the torch to fall.

Instead, Ngannou walked through it. Fighting on a compromised knee and forced to lean on wrestling few believed he had, the Cameroonian ground out a unanimous decision over Gane and kept his belt. He won the fight, and he won it while his own promoter was silently pulling for the other corner.

The rift between White and Ngannou is no secret. White has long made it clear he hated dealing with the former champion, and this week he doubled down again, publicly branding Ngannou “a bad guy” and placing him on what he called his “Oscar De La Hoya list” of people he refuses to work with.

“Ngannou is on my Oscar De La Hoya list. Look at the history of Francis Ngannou and the other companies he's been with. He's a bad guy, man. He's a bad guy, and I'm at a point in my life where I just don't want to do business with bad guys, you know what I mean? I just don't,” White said.

The UFC boss has washed his hands of him. At least, that’s the line.

Ngannou, for now, has largely taken the high road, staying quiet in the face of the latest volley. That may not last. White’s admission that he wanted his own champion to lose at UFC 270 is the kind of revelation that tends to draw a response.

What’s undeniable is the finality of the split. Ngannou is no longer a UFC fighter, his belt vacated, his future now tied to other promotions and other sports. The UFC era of “The Predator” is over, no matter how often his name still comes up from the company’s figurehead.

And that’s the irony. White insists he’s done with Ngannou, calls him a bad guy, says he won’t do business with him again. Yet the heavyweight he says he’s glad to be rid of keeps living rent-free in the conversation.

There’s a more pressing reality on White’s desk. The UFC heavyweight division has moved on without Ngannou, at least on paper, but its current champion, Tom Aspinall, hasn’t set foot in the Octagon for nearly a year. The belt is stuck in neutral, the marquee division short on recent moments, and the man who once anchored it is now fighting elsewhere.

Ngannou is gone. The grudge clearly isn’t. And while White continues to look backward at the fighter he wanted to see beaten, the real question hangs over the cage: when will the UFC’s heavyweight king actually return to defend his throne?