Journey Man: Although Francis Ngannou has yet to have a professional boxing match, he is no stranger to fighting

THE first time Francis Ngannou acquired paid for his half in organised violence he obtained 100 €20 notes in a brown envelope. He walked dwelling that night time and stuffed it beneath his mattress for secure protecting.

That was almost a decade in the past now and the 37-year-old has since established himself as one of many best heavyweights in MMA historical past paving the way in which for an unprecedented boxing match with the world’s No.1 heavyweight Tyson Fury.

The pair meet right here in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Saturday night time in Ngannou’s boxing debut which is able to happen in a goal constructed enviornment that took simply 60 days to erect. Before September, the positioning on which it stands was simply sand and rock.

Given what he has overcome to get right here, Ngannou is by no means fazed by this travelling circus. It has been advised that he will pocket an eight-figure sum for Saturday’s primary occasion. As Fury put it this week: ‘the bloke has already won’.

When Ngannou sat down with a handful of British reporters on Thursday night time, earlier than Fury’s father John supplied each him and his coach Mike Tyson out on stage, he spoke quietly about his journey to this level. Despite making his identify in blended martial arts, he insists boxing was all the time his goal.

“It was about the opportunity,” says Ngannou. “I used to be by no means enthusiastic about MMA, no matter how motivated the folks round me had been.

“I used to be not enthusiastic about changing into an MMA champion for 2 years, in August 2015, after I was within the bed room after I obtained the decision saying I had a UFC contract.

“But I wasn’t enthusiastic about it, for that second I checked out it as a good alternative. It was a fight sport and a chance to grow to be a world champion, it was all the time my dream to grow to be an elite professional fighter and this was it, it may not be boxing however this was it.

“That was the moment I really started to train as an MMA fighter, before it was just fun. But I knew that if I was going to expose myself I had better look good.”

So has he ever formally boxed?

“I had a couple of amateur fights in Cameroon,” he says. “Not when I was a kid, I started boxing when I was 22 years old. I won those fights, but fights are never easy when you start at 22 and you have to fight three or six months later. It’s not easy, you have all the stress, everything is hard.”

However Ngannou’s actual introduction to fight got here in November 2013, 10 years in the past subsequent month.

“That was three months after I started to train,” he recollects. “It was in a gymnasium in Paris, I used to be fighting this man, the one purpose I used to be fighting him was as a result of I trusted my boxing. Having been within the gymnasium for 3 months I didn’t know a lot about MMA, I didn’t even know the foundations, it was simply enjoyable and a ardour.

“I ended up profitable by submission however to at the present time, a lot of jiu-jitsu and grappling specialists have tried to discover a identify for that approach however there wasn’t one. The man simply needed to go to the ground and I grabbed his arm and twisted it and pulled his hand.

“I didn’t get paid. It was a tournament and I didn’t get paid. I fought two fights but I didn’t get paid.”

Although he gained that night time, Ngannou says it was defeat in the identical match which saved him within the sport and finally precluded him from embarking on a boxing profession for the subsequent decade.

“At that time I didn’t intend to do MMA,” he provides. “When they proposed the combat I used to be doing MMA only for the expertise however my purpose was nonetheless boxing.

“The problem was, and the reason I stayed in MMA, was I lost the final. It was supposed to be the last fight for me and then I would move on to boxing and not even go to the MMA gym anymore, but I lost. But my ego felt like I was quitting if I leave on the loss so I decided to leave on a positive note.”

Despite his burgeoning status as a blended martial artist throughout the Paris combat group, boxing was nonetheless the primary love for a man who grew up idolising Mike Tyson, the person Saturday’s opponent was named after.

But these had been powerful days for the Cameroonian, working unlawful cash-in-hand jobs on the door at nightclubs and supplementing that revenue by pummeling folks on the weekends.

“You can love MMA but you can’t change the fact you loved boxing for 20 years before discovering what MMA is,” he provides. “It’s not one thing you possibly can change, I like boxing however MMA gave me extra alternatives.

“After that match I gained 2000 euros however I left on a good be aware and I used to be going to go to boxing. A good friend instructed me the gymnasium Carlos Takam was at and I went there that very same month, April 2014, and began coaching there, sparring with Carlos Takam.

“That was my goal but from time to time they would call me. I was getting noticed, they would say, “Who the f*** is that guy, that animal?” Very rapidly folks had been very impressed with how I used to be fighting. The promoter would say there was a combat for 300 euros and I wasn’t in one of the best place to flip that down.

“Any competitors, I used to be in, something to maintain me lively, I’d take. I didn’t have a job, I used to be coaching full time and I needed one thing to do. I’d prepare boxing and in the event that they wanted me for sparring, I’d spar. I used to be additionally coaching at an MMA gymnasium and I had a entire dream in entrance of me.

“For the most part those MMA fights were cancelled at the last minute because people didn’t want to deal with me anymore. They said I was brutal and violent. Sometimes I would be in the locker room warming up and they would cancel the fight.”

Given the riches on supply, there was by no means any probability of both man pulling out of Saturday’s combat and risking what are career-high purses for the pair of them. It has been a lengthy and winding street to boxing for Ngannou however he now has the prospect to pull off what can be the most important shock within the sport’s lengthy historical past. He has been given a ‘puncher’s probability’ by Fury however the stark actuality is he has a lot lower than that.

“I have climbed a lot of mountains in my life,” says the previous sand quarry employee and jail inmate.

“I’ve been coaching for over three months. I really feel extra snug. At the start it was very powerful, not to point out I haven’t fought for a very long time. It was not solely coming again to a coaching camp however for a totally different self-discipline so it was very powerful at first.

“But it acquired extra snug and so long as it was, you want you had two or 4 extra weeks however you bear in mind you have that in each camp. There is by no means sufficient till you determine it’s sufficient and also you go.

“The individuals who I fought in MMA to grow to be champion had been doing fight sports activities since they had been children so I’m not afraid of mountains.

“There is not a approach to know if I can climb or not except I attempt. I gained’t keep again and determine I can’t climb.

“I will go to the mountain and find out I can’t climb.”

On Saturday the world will discover out whether or not Ngannou can attain the summit. Whatever occurs, he’s going to want a greater mattress.