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Now known as the hardest recorded puncher in the world, and the 5th pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC rankings, Francis Ngannou, the heavy-weight champion of the world, lived a much different life before making his way to MMA stardom. To take a deep dive into the life he once lived, it’s essential that we go back a few years to the time of baby Francis, born on September 5, 1986, in the Batié village in Cameroon.
As a kid, Francis Ngannou and his family lived in poverty, and he had very little formal education. This made things worse for his parents, and when he turned six years of age, his parents got a divorce and sent him to live with his aunt.
At just age 10, Francis got a job at a sand quarry in the Batié village in the hope of making some extra income for himself and his family. A sand quarry is a place where sand is extracted so it can be sold to other users. Just as you would expect, this is an arduous job, especially since sand becomes quite heavy in large amounts. This is the kind of back-breaking work that Francis was doing from age 10.
During his childhood, Francis’ father was a street fighter and was very well known in the village for getting into brawls on the streets. People in the village would mock Francis and his family over his father’s behavior. As Francis grew up, he was approached by a couple of street gangs in his village who wanted him to become a part of their gangs. He refused and used his father’s negative rep as a street fighter as the motivation he needed to pursue something more respectable.
Fast forward to 12 years after he started working at the sand quarry, Francis Ngannou decided to start training in boxing, even though his family was against it. This didn’t stop him from training, and he kept at it for one year until he had to stop due to illness. From the age of 23 to 26, Francis Ngannou did various odd jobs to survive and make ends meet.
As he became an adult, he ended up frustrated with his life's direction. He saw no opportunity with the life he had, and he came to believe that there was hardly any chance of him achieving greatness in Cameroon. He always wanted a better life for himself, a way to provide and take care of his family, and the opportunity to fulfill a dream he had deep inside as he always believed that he was destined for greatness. With that in mind, at 26 years old, he decided to migrate to Paris, France, to pursue a career in professional boxing.
Talking about his life in his village and his migration to Cameroon has never been pleasant for this MMA superstar. He usually speaks in a quiet voice that drops to almost inaudible levels when he’s hard-pressed to remember the trouble that drove him to seek a new path. Clearly, he doesn’t particularly enjoy talking about his decision to leave a life of abject poverty in the hopes of finding something—literally anything—better in a foreign land.
He once said, “I left Cameroon just to try and have a life, to survive. When I was in Cameroon, I just didn’t see a way. I could survive, but that’s about it.” With that notion and a little more than a dream, one most people would have considered an unrealistic one at that, Francis Ngannou packed up his bags and made the journey of over 3,100 miles from Cameroon to France in the hopes of finding a better life. In a country where the average citizen takes home roughly $1,300 per year, he believed the prospects of a bright future were slim, but they existed nonetheless.
Francis Ngannou’s dream of becoming a professional boxer was fueled by a love for watching prime Mike Tyson, and this made him think that boxing might provide a way out of poverty. He said, “He was the youngest guy to be the champion, 18 or 19 or something like that, and I knew I couldn’t do what he did. But I still believed that I could do something great.” Francis planned at least to take a shot at the life he always dreamed about, and if it didn’t work out, he would move on. However, he knew that he needed persistence and perseverance. He said, “It won’t happen if you don’t try. I said to myself to give some time to my dream. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m going to try.”

Family Friendly, PG