Francis Ngannou believes the UFC heavyweight division is suffering from mismanagement, and he pointed to Tom Aspinall’s ongoing situation with the promotion as a prime example of what has gone wrong.
Ngannou departed the UFC in 2023 as heavyweight champion following a contentious split and has since fought twice in boxing against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, and has also won the PFL Super Fights heavyweight title with a first-round knockout of Renan Ferreira in October 2024.
“I think there is a lot of, I would say, mismanagement,” Ngannou told The Schmo. “There is a lot of mismanagement that sometimes gets stuff screwed up, and then that’s where we are today. You see, even now, there’s a lot of heavyweights out there like Tom Aspinall. He’s having troubles with this. I think there’s a mismanagement. You see all these situations that don’t come and entertain. When I say mismanagement, I wasn’t talking about, like, managers. I was talking mostly about the promotion.”
Aspinall has been sidelined since suffering double-eye injuries against Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 in October 2025, and the ongoing wait for his return, while an interim title is created between Pereira and Gane, has drawn scrutiny from multiple corners of the sport.
Ngannou also addressed his approach to opponent selection, acknowledging that chasing specific names has not served him well in the past.
“Nowadays with all these different companies, it’s hard to just focus on a name. I’ve done that for a while, and it didn’t work really good. We can take a good example of the Jon Jones fight that we’ve been talking about around six years. So whatever fight makes sense, just fight. Remember, the goal at the end of the day is to fight.”
Ngannou faces Philipe Lins on May 16 at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood on the first-ever MVP MMA card on Netflix.