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By Peter Akinbo.
Former UFC middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya, is in full support of Francis Ngannou’s decision to quit the UFC after they couldn’t agree on demands for a contract extension.
The Nigerian-born New Zealander thinks Ngannou made the right call when he opted out of re-signing with the UFC and instead headed to free agency and left behind his heavyweight title. Ngannou’s decision to leave the promotion came after certain contractual requests weren’t met.
Adesanya thinks Ngannou’s demands weren’t out of line, and he commends him for looking out after other fighters’ wellbeing.
“Francis made the right call, he’s the one that kicked in the door. We’ve all been behind him. We’ve been saying this for how long? If you guys go back on the tapes, I’ve been saying the same thing. I’m not going to harp on about it, but he’s right. It’s little things. He’s asking for things that should be mandatory,” Adesanya said.
“He wasn’t asking for, you know, crazy, ridiculous diva demands. There’s something as little as for the guys fighting on the opening (bouts), having the fourth or third corner man being paid for, and the hotel is being paid for. That sets them up nicely, and they don’t have to fork it out of their $10K to pay for their fourth or third corner man – little things like that.”
Ngannou, who left the UFC in January, said he asked for several things, but didn’t need to get all of them in order to renew his contract. Things such as roster health insurance, right to get sponsorship, fighter representation were some of the things Ngannou said he asked for.
Adesanya thinks those requests were fair, and he would like to see some of those changes be implemented in the future.
“He’s not being a diva,” Adesanya said. “He’s asking for reasonable demands, and I felt like he should have got them. UFC president Dana White said, ‘That’s not how we do business.’ But the way we do business has to change, and it will change. He’s just the guy to kick in the door.”
