Rags-to-riches, Ngannou eyes heavyweight shock

Francis Ngannou once toiled in a sand mine, scavenged for food to avoid starvation and slept rough in a car park, so facing former twotime world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on Friday is just another stop on his epic rags-toriches journey. “I’ve had a lot of experience in life,” the softly-spoken Cameroon-born fighter says with characteristic understatement. “I’ve built my fighting spirit as high as anyone else.”

Ngannou has crammed a lot into his 37 years. The child of a single mother, he had to walk six miles to school and from the age of 10 he shoveled sand from open quarries, his meagre income helping to buy food and books. “It was work meant for adults, but we didn’t have any options,” said Ngannou of his back-breaking labors which paid less then $2 a day. “Sometimes I didn’t have a pen or a notebook. Sometimes no shoes, my uniform was torn. I looked crappy. “I didn’t like my life, I felt like I missed my childhood.”

In 2012, at the age of 26 and fired by dreams of becoming a professional boxer, Ngannou, now boasting a towering physique carved from his brutal work in the sand pits, made a break for Europe and a better life. Crammed with others into the back of a pick-up truck, he crossed the unforgiving Sahara, travelled through Nigeria, Niger and Algeria before reaching Morocco.

Then, after half a dozen failed attempts, he finally made it over the Mediterranean to Spain where he was promptly jailed for two months for making an illegal crossing. Completing a trip of around 5,000km, he took a train to Paris, lived in a car park before local boxing coach Didier Carmont found him a place to live and a gym in which to train. Despite an early fascination with Mike Tyson, Ngannou graduated towards Mixed Martial Arts and in 2021 became the UFC world heavyweight champion.

Many scoffed when he opted to make his boxing debut against world champion Tyson Fury in the socalled “Battle of the Baddest” in October last year. The doubters were silenced, however, when Ngannou sent Fury to the canvas in the third round before losing only on a controversial split decision. His reputation and bank balance soared. He was paid $10 million for his night’s work, a windfall which has helped the once shoeless Cameroonian purchase a luxurious home in Las Vegas.