Francis Ngannou could be heard on UFC Embedded this week telling Alistair Overeem that Overeem would be going to sleep.
The mountainous UFC heavyweight would not be proven wrong.
On Saturday in the co-main event of UFC 218 in Detroit, Ngannou absolutely crushed Overeem with a left uppercut, knocking the former Strikeforce champion out cold at 1:42 of the first round.
Even though he was correct in his pre-fight assessment, Ngannou admitted that he doesn’t usually talk trash to opponents before fights and this was the first time he has done something like this.
“No, but sometimes you have to do something that you never do,” Ngannous said with a laugh at the post-fight press conference.
Ngannou, 31, is doing things right now that no one has done. The Cameroon native by way of France has cut through the UFC’s heavyweight division like a hot knife through butter. Ngannou (11-1) has won all six of his UFC fights by finish. Only two have gone past the first round — the first two.
“I know that 80 percent, I’m gonna knock you out,” Ngannou said. “The 20 percent was just like random.”
Ngannou is in line for a title shot against Stipe Miocic next. He said Saturday night after beating Overeem that he wants that fight to happen as soon as possible. That certainly seems like a possibility, since he took zero damage at UFC 218.
When pressed about why he told Overeem that he would knock him out, Ngannou said it was because of things Overeem said in the lead up to the bout.
“Because he talk a little bit,” Ngannou said. “He talk a little bit and I really just wanted him to hear that I’m a little bit hungry about what he said, and I wanted to correct him.”
How could Ngannou be so confident as a relative newcomer to the scene against Overeem, a heavyweight legend who has fought 60 times in MMA going back to 1999?
“That is the past, man,” Ngannou said with a smile. “We are talking about now. And now is me. I’m the present.”