There’s a saying that “time heals everything,” which is mostly true in usual cases. But that’s definitely not the case when it comes to Dana White and Francis Ngannou’s rift. It’s been over three years since ‘The Predator’ left the UFC, but the UFC CEO remains adamant about not doing business with the promotion’s former heavyweight champion. 

Dana White joined the Nightcap podcast to promote this weekend’s boxing spectacle between Ryan Garcia and Conor Benn. There, the host asked the 57-year-old whether he would ever work with Ngannou, which prompted White to respond bluntly. 

“Listen, Ngannou is on my Oscar De La Hoya list,” White said. “Look at the history of Francis Ngannou and the other companies that he has been with. You know, since he’s… he’s a bad guy, man. He’s a bad guy. I’m at a point in my life that I don’t want to do business with bad guys.”      

This has been Dana White’s long-standing stance on Francis Ngannou. Before exiting from UFC, the former UFC heavyweight champ had an eight-fight deal with White’s promotion. But when that contract finally ran its course in 2023, ahead of his fight with Ciryl Gane. ‘The Predator’ felt the UFC wasn’t paying him what he was worth, setting the stage for the dispute between him and the promotion. 

Despite White claiming that the UFC offered Ngannou a deal that would have made him the highest-paid heavyweight, the Cameroonian turned it down and walked away from the UFC after beating Gane at UFC 270. Since then, White has made no secret of his disdain for Ngannou, repeatedly insisting that he would never do business with the former champ again. 

Most notably, White shut down the idea of Ngannou’s return at UFC Baku last year after his coach, Eric Nicksick, expressed interest in the Cameroonian fighter’s comeback in his promotion. 

However, as White has pointed out, Ngannou’s business dealings outside the UFC haven’t exactly been smooth sailing either.

Back in 2015, the Cameroonian was entangled in a dispute with his former coach, Fernand Lopez. The MMA Factory head coach accused Ngannou of refusing to pay his gym membership fees, which ultimately led to a controversial split. After that, the former UFC champ joined Xtreme Couture and began training under Eric Nicksick.

Following this, Ngannou was also caught up in a dispute with the PFL. Despite landing an $8 million-per-fight deal and taking on the chairmanship of PFL Africa, the ex-PFL champ missed the promotion’s first-ever event on the continent, prompting former PFL CEO Donn Davis to admit he was “disappointed” with the 40-year-old. 

Eventually, Ngannou’s differences with the PFL reached a point where he decided to part ways with the promotion, having only one fight under its banner despite being handed a highly lucrative deal. It marked the Cameroonian’s second exit from a major promotion after he departed from the UFC. Because of this, many began questioning whether Ngannou’s way of doing business with promotions was becoming a recurring problem.

Those disputes have given Dana White plenty of ammunition to label ‘The Predator’ a horrible guy to do business with. However, that only covers their professional fallout. White once revealed that Ngannou took their feud beyond business and personally confronted him.

Dana White reveals Francis Ngannou once grabbed him by the collar

For years, Dana White has had his share of feuds with promotional champions like Anderson Silva and others, some of which became heated in their own right. But according to the 57-year-old business mogul, his feud with Francis Ngannou turned far more personal after the heavyweight champion allegedly tried to grab him by the collar when White denied him a $50,000 bonus after a certain fight.

“He was pissed off he didn’t get a $50,000 in his last fight, that he didn’t get the bonus of the night,” White said during the Flagrant podcast last year. “I said Francis you didn’t get it for this, that [reason] and he’s in my office and he’s arguing with me. I’m like this guy got this, this guy got that and this is why.

The conversation’s over, and I’m starting to leave, and he grabs me by my shirt and pushes me back in my office and I said ‘dude, get your f—ing hands off me.’ I could see in this guy’s face and in his eyes and the way he’s acting who this guy really f—ing is.”

But that’s not all. White went on to claim that Ngannou also physically threatened UFC CBO Hunter Campbell. Though nothing has been proven, the UFC CEO later appeared to walk back those comments in a subsequent interview with The Mac Life, stating that Francis Ngannou actually didn’t try to “threaten” them, which prompted many to question White’s account of the alleged confrontation.

That said, with the story adding another layer to their long-running feud, it once again becomes clear that Francis Ngannou’s UFC return is nothing more than a dream, at least for as long as Dana White remains the CEO and president of the company.