Standing at 6’4 feet tall and weighing 120KG of pure muscle, Francis Ngannou is the stuff of nightmares when it comes to martial arts. He’s also previously won the UFC Heavyweight belt. So, everyone knows that Francis Ngannou is a great fighter, but what about his credentials when it comes to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?
Firstly, Francis Ngannou is technically a white belt in BJJ. This may sound staggering to some, but it is true. In fact, one of the greatest grapplers ever – Khabib Nurmagomedov is also technically a white belt in BJJ. Of course, it goes without saying that Khabib could easily defeat most competitive BJJ black belts. Nonetheless, the fact is that Khabib has never formally taken BJJ classes. This means that there’s literally been no one to grade him.
This is exactly the same for Francis Ngannou as well. Although Ngannou is mostly a striker who prefers to use boxing, he also does grapple from time to time. In his early MMA career, he snatched a couple of submissions and also got a nasty Kimura to defeat Anthony Hamilton shortly after joining the UFC. Lastly, he also showed good takedowns and leg lock defenses in his title defense against Ciryl Gane.
With this said, it’s clear that Ngannou is not really a white belt in BJJ. Honestly, it’s quite hard to gauge what rank he should have because there’s not really any footage of him using a guard or playing off his back. Still, there is footage in him in the gym – and he definitely knows how to roll.
When it comes to training sport BJJ, this concept may be hard to understand. However, within the MMA community it’s actually quite common. Most MMA fighters don’t really care about BJJ belts and are happy to go their entire career without being given a belt. It seems like Ngannou could be the same. Quite easily, Ngannou could turn up to a BJJ gym tomorrow and easily be given a blue belt. However, when you’ve earned a UFC belt against all odds, it may shift your perspective on what is truly important.
So there we have it. The reason that Francis Ngannou is a white belt is that he probably won’t train in the gi, nor will he train BJJ in its purest form. Because of this, he won’t be around the right circles to get a BJJ belt promotion and so he remains in a rare and exclusive club of elite fighters whilst still being a white belt.
