As the curtains of 2022 are closed, the UFC legend Chael Sonnen looked back at some of the most iconic moments of the UFC of that year. And upon doing so, he branded the Francis Ngannou and Ciryl Gane fight as a “borderline crime”. The 45-year-old believes that Ngannou vs. Gane was potent enough to rank as the year’s biggest matchup. But due to the lack of effort from the fighters to not juice up the fight enough, it ended up being a huge letdown. Add to that, another fight that took the year in 2022 and ended up raking big numbers. That comparison is essentially what Sonnen put up to prove his point. The fight took place in the midst of the contract dispute between the Cameroonian fighter and the UFC.

Chael Sonnen feels Ngannou vs. Gane was a robbery

UFC 270 served as one of the most sought-after events of 2022. But Chael Sonnen couldn’t stress enough on how its main card bout was an absolute goof-up. The UFC legend claims that only with stronger effort from the fighters would this bout have been able to garner more attention. But since that wasn’t the case, things went downhill pretty bad. Sonnen said, “There was money taken for services that were not rendered. Does that sound legal to you? It was a borderline crime what Francis and Ciryl did.”

Sonnen continued by saying, “You never saw those two guys that were smart enough to become bilingual so they can speak to a North American audience, go out and do news shows of sports, promoting or talking about or hyping that fight, at all.”

And the fact that Charles Oliveira and Justin Gaethje‘s non-title fight ended up being a bigger spectacle just supports Sonnen’s claims. “There was a fight several months later, that wasn’t for a title, was not in the most perennial class and did not even put up the same amount of prize money. It set the pay-per-view record. It got announced. Got reported and put out and that was a non-title fight between Charles Oliveira and Justin Gaethje. But at that point of the year, it had the record.” added the 45-year-old.

Read more: ‘I Want My Rematch’- Ciryl Gane Makes a Statement After Francis Ngannou Loss

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“That’s in the same year that we had the greatest storyline in the heavyweight history.” He further added, “you don’t get things like that, they fall into your lap. And those guys went out of their way to make the world uninterested.” 

And there Sonnen blamed it all on the fighters. Francis Ngannou himself wasn’t too happy with the event himself. In a follow-up video on his YouTube, he described his state of mind after UFC 270.

Francis Ngannou was furious even though he won

The Cameroonian UFC stalwart prevailed at the UFC 270 against ‘Bon Gamin’. But rather than relishing in his triumph, ‘The Predator’ sensed a fire smouldering inside of him against the UFC. The reason for this was the ongoing contract dispute between Ngannou and the UFC, in which the fighter demanded more freedom, but it didn’t seem to work out that way.

The UFC heavyweight champion stated, “After the fight, instead of being happy, I started to feel some anger. Oh, yeah. I was angry about all this, like, you know, those kind of like emotional moments like, ‘Okay. They wanted to screw me up. They wanted to f**k me.'”

Despite this, there are reports circulating that indicate things are improving. In fact, ‘The Predator’ is also the preferred opponent for Jon Jones upon his comeback.

Watch this story: “Freedom” or “Legacy”? UFC President Dana White Put Forward a Tough Choice for Francis Ngannou