Francis Ngannou 'Disappointed' Not To Be Fighting Rico Verhoeven On Netflix Card
Francis Ngannou admitted he was a little disappointed not to be fighting Rico Verhoeven as he returns to MMA with MVP's Netflix card in May.
Ngannou will be fighting for the first time since he won the PFL Super Fights Heavyweight title over Renan Ferreira in 2024, having also been the unbeaten UFC Heavyweight Champion at the time he departed the promotion a year earlier. As a result, he can be considered as close to a Lineal Heavyweight Champion in MMA as possible.
He will be returning against Philipe Lins, an 18-5 fighter who won the 2018 PFL Heavyweight Championship Tournament and competed in UFC's light heavyweight division. But initially Ngannou had been looking to GLORY Kickboxing's own departed Heavyweight Champion, Verhoeven, in what would have been his second professional MMA bout.
Alas, Verhoeven had already reached a verbal agreement with Turki Alashikh regarding a boxing fight, and will now be facing Oleksandr Usyk in Giza, Egypt, on May 23.
"No disrespect to Philipe but I was very excited for the Rico fight, and then when I heard that he had signed to fight Usyk I was a little disappointed, to be honest," Ngannou told Ariel Helwani when asked about it.
He added that he did not know the financials discussed, given that the belief is he turned down more money with MVP to keep his word with Alashikh.
"I don't know about the amount. I don't know about numbers. But since December he had a verbal agreement to fight in boxing... he was always clear about it," Ngannou said.
Francis Ngannou discusses negotiations around the rumored Rico Verhoeven fight and how he landed on Philipe Lins as an opponent:
"I mean, no disrespect to Philipe, but I was very excited about the Rico fight. When I heard that he had signed to fight Usyk, I was a little... pic.twitter.com/TiRe6D6WJX
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) March 24, 2026
Ngannou was also asked if he felt any way towards Verhoeven's fight being sanctioned as a World title fight by WBC, when his own fight against Tyson Fury in 2023 was not. He explained that at the time there was a lack of faith in cross-over fighters, though he noted that he was ranked after the Fury fight and the bout itself was contested for a commemorative belt.