Francis Ngannou says he was “falling asleep” before his fight against Anthony Joshua, claiming he was tricked into getting to the arena too early. The former UFC heavyweight champion lost through a second round knockout earlier this month. It was only his second professional boxing contest, having narrowly been beaten by Tyson Fury in 2023.

But he says he was put off by being made to get to the arena much earlier than his opponent.”I remember being in the locker [room] trying to warm up, and it wasn’t going well,”

“I was falling asleep! I’m sweating, but I was falling asleep.

“But I’m sure that’s how some people that I have fought and have beaten have been before. No blame on anybody, the blame here is all on me.

“It’s not like I fought at 3am and he fought at like midnight or something. We both fought at 3am.

“Something that’s happened is that they get me to the arena very early. My pickup time was 10.30pm to go to the arena. And then when we get to the arena, they tell us that we are scheduled around 1.45am.

“They come to the locker room around 1 and Joshua [was just arriving]. I’m like, ‘OK, we are fighting at the same time, how come I have a pickup time?’

“We received a schedule, an email, and then for some reason I was there at least one hour before.

“They do this kind of trick to get you tired. I was like cool. I didn’t know how it was, how important that was, until the fight day that I have to get there two hours before.”

Ngannou had already announced ahead of the contest that he now plans to return to MMA to fight Renan Ferreira.

A date for the bout has yet to be confirmed, but the 37-year-old had stated he would take on the winner of Ferreira’s contest with Ryan Bader last month, which the Brazilian won by TKO in the first round.

As he prepares to return to the octagon though, Ngannou – who has stated he is not finished with boxing just yet – insists he has no regrets about how the fight with Joshua ended.

“It is the game unfortunately,” he added. “We all knew it [the knockout] could happen.

“I wasn’t seeing it happen like that, but I always knew it could happen. At least, I was always prepared for that.”