To prepare for his long awaited MMA return, Francis Ngannou is doing his training camp out in Paris before October 19.
Any heavyweight in the sport will tell you that one of the biggest problems that they encounter is finding suitable training partners to work with.
This is even more true when you’re preparing to fight a 6’8″ opponent in Renan Ferreira.
Team Ngannou’s problem could have been temporarily solved this week thanks to the UFC arriving in Paris for Saturday night’s event at the Accor Arena.
Ngannou’s coach, Eric Nicksick, has built a strong relationship with another of the world’s best heavyweights – whom he was hoping to cross paths with in the French capital.
Eric Nicksick Says He Would’ve Loved To Connect Ngannou & Aspinall
In a recent interview with ESPN MMA, Nicksick said that he hoped to connect Ngannou with the interim UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall this week.
Unfortunately, Aspinall wasn’t making the trip over for the fights on Saturday but the Xtreme Couture coach still thinks it could happen at some stage.
With both men being right at the top of their weight class in different promotions, the sparring videos alone would be PPV-worthy.
He said that the short distance between England and France means that Aspinall may be able to join their camp before they leave for Saudi Arabia.
Nicksick did say that though the Brit isn’t in town, he did offer to help out in a different way, by giving them a list of names who may be of use as sparring partners to mimic Ferreira.
“I was hoping that he’d [Aspinall] be out here and we’d get some training in and not saying it won’t happen, maybe it can before we get out of here because he’s like an hour flight away. He’s not too far away but he was gracious enough to send me some names of his training partners and guys that we could use and try to bring out here to help out Francis but he was all about it man and Tom’s been a great friend and a great guy to have in the circle.”
Read also: Ciryl Gane’s Absence From UFC Fight Night Card In Paris Explained
