It’s been shut to a few years since Francis Ngannou has fought within the cage.

On Saturday night time in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia the previous UFC heavyweight champion Ngannou will make his debut for the PFL towards Renan Ferreira, in a bout that follows Ngannou’s two-fight sojourn into boxing through which he fought two of this technology’s most interesting heavyweights in Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.

However regardless of spending a lot of the previous couple of years focussing on increasing his arsenal within the stand-up recreation, Saturday’s struggle with Ferreira represents Ngannou’s return to the bigger skillset of MMA — and as such, he says that the struggle is probably not the stand-up warfare that many expect.

“He strikes lots and he has good grappling. I imply, he’s a black belt,” Ngannou stated of his upcoming opponent throughout a current look on The Ariel Helwani Present, through MMA Information.

“Until the struggle goes longer — if the struggle goes previous two rounds, I believe it’s doubtless going to finish up a choice. In any other case, if it stays inside two rounds, I believe it’s a knockout or why not a submission?”

He added: “You understand, I’m not a black belt, however I’m not unhealthy too. I’ve been engaged on some little methods.”

Ngannou’s final struggle beneath combined martial arts guidelines, towards Ciryl Gane in January 2022 in what proved to be his closing bout with the UFC, was additionally anticipated to be a battle between two of the division’s finest strikers. As an alternative Ngannou, who was nursing a knee damage forward of the struggle, employed a grapple-heavy method towards the Frenchman to win a five-round resolution.

It stays to be seen what sort of gameplan Ngannou will deliver with him to the cage this time round however both means, fireworks are anticipated.