After two high profile fights in the boxing ring across the span of the last 12 months, Francis Ngannou returns to the sport in which he made his name in October.

Ngannou, the former UFC heavyweight champion, is set to make his PFL debut on October 19th in a heavyweight clash against the giant ‘Problema’ Renan Ferreira in what will be the Cameroonian fighter’s first mixed martial arts rules bout in the best part of three years since his final UFC fight; a unanimous decision win against Ciyrl Gane in early 2022.

Since then, Ngannou came close to scoring what would have been on the of the biggest upsets in the history of professional sports when he was narrowly outpointed by then-WBC champion Tyson Fury in Saudi Arabia last October but suffered a more conclusive knockout defeat to Anthony Joshua in his sophomore effort in the boxing ring earlier this year.

And speaking to the Mirror, Ngannou said that he will take these lessons with him to the cage when he takes on Ferreira in a couple of months’ time.

“It depends on which aspect,” he said, when asked about transferring his boxing skills to the cage. “As far as the fight itself is concerned, I learned more from the Tyson Fury fight but from the business and organisation side I learned more from the Anthony Joshua fight.

“It was a different experience,” he added, of the defeat to Joshua which left him unconscious on the canvas midway through the second round in March. “But in every fight, you know it can happen. You know… it’s like going to war, you shoot people but some day you can take a bullet.

“The last couple of months wasn’t the right time to be talking about a boxing fight,” he explained. “The only reason I’m having this fight is that it was a fight we were talking about even before the Anthony Joshua fight.

“When the PFL champion [Ferreira] and the Bellator champion [Ryan Bader] event happened in Riyadh, the purpose was to fight the winner of that fight. [Renan] is a very good fighter; he has very good attributes as a fighter. He has very good speed, fast hands and he is very athletic.”