Francis Ngannou holds frightening power in his hands. The Cameroonian held the record for the hardest punch in the UFC Performance Institute with a whooping score of over 120,000 units. UFC CEO Dana White, in happier times, would gleefully announce in a press conference that the heavyweight hit harder “than a sledgehammer from full force overhead.”

This immense power saw him transition seamlessly to boxing where he lost a one-point split decision to heavyweight champion Tyson Fury in his boxing debut. But it’s not been as easy for Ngannou as all this makes it sound. He might have the hand of god, but fate wasn’t always kind to the man. From working in sand mines to trying to cross the border to France to train, the Predator has had a difficult life. As he sets up to face former unified champion Anthony Joshua in a no. 1 title contender bout for the undisputed title, here’s a throwback to Joe Rogan marveling at the former UFC heavyweight champion.

Joe Rogan struck by Francis Ngannou’s size

On a 2018 episode of his JRE podcast with Muay Thai fighter Liam Harrison, Joe Rogan got to discussing Francis Ngannou’s superhuman strength and physique, which had brought him to the top of the UFC’s heavyweight division despite only having started his martial arts journey in 2013.

“I mean Francis is a great MMA fighter but he’s been fighting for five years, yeah, he just hits f***ing unbelievably hard,” Rogan said.

Harrison was flabbergasted that Ngannou had managed to score 120,000 on the UFC’s punching machine. Rogan agreed and pointed out that his legendary kicks could barely score that high and revealed that he was struck by the Cameroonian’s size every time he saw him or shook his brick-like hands.

“That’s so crazy that’s what I get with a kick. Well, you know in his defense he’s a hundred pounds heavier than me… His hands are so big every time I shake his hands I’m like ‘How is that a person?’ I mean it’s like shaking hands with a brick, like a giant brick. They’re just so big,” he said. Rogan was equally impressed by Ngannou’s backstory, which alone is the stuff of legends.

Ngannou walked across Africa to pursue martial arts dream

Francis Ngannou was born in poverty in a remote village in Cameroon. He would spend his childhood and teenage years working in the sand mines until he decided to migrate to Europe. In order to achieve this, he had to walk across to the northern coast of Africa from where he tried to cross over to Europe.

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He was turned back seven times, which would be enough to discourage any ordinary person. But in what would become a theme throughout his UFC career, Ngannou would persist and eventually succeed despite the seemingly unsurmountable circumstances.

He would start training mixed martial arts at the age of 26 and would go on to fight for the heavyweight championship in the most competitive and popular MMA promotion in the world within five years. And Joe Rogan couldn’t help but be awestruck by his inspiring journey.

“And we were talking before about how in his background, he worked as a child in a sand mine digging, shoveling all day just digging sand, like what a what a great workout that is for your bodies… Five years ago he was homeless,” Rogan said. Francis Ngannou is on the cusp of something special. If he can defeat Anthony Joshua, he will get a shot at the undisputed heavyweight title and a shot at being remembered as the greatest martial artist of all time.

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