Brett Okamoto, ESPN Staff Writer
Oct 16, 2024, 07:48 AM ET
BATIÉ, Cameroon — It’s a cold, foggy morning in August, which is the middle of the rainy season in Central Africa. Francis Ngannou and I are standing in the backyard of the three-story home he built for himself in 2020.
This compound — with its iron gate, guardhouse, swimming pool and China-imported marble floors — looks out of place. There’s not another one like it for miles. It’s near Ngannou’s childhood home, which is constructed of mud bricks and scraps of zinc. When he was young, Ngannou used to lean stalks of bamboo against its open windows during these wet months to preserve warmth.
“This still used to be my favorite time of the year,” he tells ESPN despite the chill in the air. “It’s harvest season, which means we were less likely to go hungry.”
More than half of Cameroon lives in poverty. The very land Ngannou’s home is built on; he doesn’t know how it came into his possession. He believes his grandfather claimed it after Cameroon gained its independence from French rule in 1960 following a bloody conflict frequently glossed over in discussions of European and African history. In a way, this country has been denied the simple right to define its past.
And yet arguably the No. 1 heavyweight fighter on the planet somehow emerged from one of its quietest corners.
“The people of this region are still just building and starting over,” Ngannou says. “The good thing is that we are very hard workers.”
On Saturday, Ngannou will return to MMA for the first time since 2022 when he faces last year’s PFL heavyweight champion Renan Ferreira at PFL Super Fights: Battle of Giants in Riyadh Saudi Arabia.