Francis Ngannou vs Cain Velasquez Preview

Francis Ngannou vs Cain Velasquez Preview

By Alex Conway

The UFC will make it’s full-fledged ESPN debut Sunday night with a heavyweight tilt between Francis Ngannou and Cain Velasquez. The promotion has had two nights in 2019 where fights have aired on ESPN but this will be the first dedicated main card to appear on the channel.

The main event features the long-awaited return of Cain Velasquez. He will square up with Ngannou, who is coming off a first round knockout of Curtis Blaydes. The fight itself has a lot to examine but the stakes are a little murky.

Nobody knows what the future lies for the current UFC heavyweight champ Daniel Cormier. Cormier says he’s retiring soon, and at most he probably will only fight once or twice more. A win for Ngannou could lead to a title shot, but fights against Jon Jones and Brock Lesnar will do far better business for the UFC than a Cormier-Ngannou fight.

Cormier and Velasquez will never fight since they are teammates at American Kickboxing Academy. So it isn’t fair to label this fight anywhere close to a number one contender bout even though it has all the talent in the world being put on display that could make it one.

If Velasquez is truly back then this should be his fight to lose. He’s a more well-rounded striker even though Ngannou has a power advantage over anybody on Earth. Velasquez also is able to push the pace in a way that should make anyone who is an Ngannou fan nervous if they remember his night against Stipe Miocic. If Miocic was able to do that against Ngannou, a prime Velasquez will be like an Orca whale drowning a baby seal.

On the ground it’s a no-contest. Velasquez is a far superior grappler and has possibly the best ground-and-pound in heavyweight history this side of Fedor.

But this fight isn’t anywhere close to a sure thing for Velasquez despite all the boxes he checks.

Velasquez hasn’t fought since July 2016. That’s long enough that most people didn’t even know who Ngannou was back then. Velasquez beat Travis Browne via some pretty fun spinning stuff, but that’s the same Travis Browne who has ridden off into the sunset never to be heard from again ever since Ronda Rousey starting riding the WWE money train.

Velasquez’s last outing before that was against Fabricio Werdum, a fight he lost the heavyweight crown in Mexico and brought the meme “Sea-level Cain” into our lives.

For some perspective on how long ago that fight was, remember, that was the month prior to Conor McGregor’s first time headlining a UFC pay-per-view. That’s right, this was before Conor McGregor ever held a world title, before champ-champ’s were a thing and one year before Zuffa sold the UFC.

Velasquez has been battling injuries so long that it’s easy to disregard the fact that he still holds the majority of all UFC heavyweight records (or at least a portion of them).

If Velasquez is healthy, the only way he loses is if Ngannou catches him with something heavy early. Velasquez does like to aggressively pursue his opponents, meaning it wouldn’t be out of the question that he walks into something that could put him out.

But if you’re a betting man (or woman), this one should be Velasquez all the way.