It has been an extremely challenging year for Francis Ngannou.

The former UFC heavyweight champion made his return to mixed martial arts on Saturday night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia where he scored his first win in the sport since a January 2022 decision over Ciryl Gane, after which he took an extended hiatus from the sport to heal a troublesome knee injury and take a two-fight detour to boxing where he fought two of this generation’s greatest heavyweights in Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.

And with the 40z gloves back on his fists, it was business as usual.

‘The Predator’ employed a similar grappling-heavy approach to his bout with Gane in his return match against the giant Brazilian Renan Ferreira, swiftly taking the fight to the canvas and pounding ‘Problema’ out inside the first round.

Then the emotions came. Ngannou tragically lost his four-month old son Kobe earlier this year and as soon as the fight ended he broke down in tears — something which he would soon elaborate on his his post-fight press conference.

“It was my biggest challenge in the way that I wasn’t the person that I used to be,” Ngannou said. “Coming into this fight, this fight was also a way for me to find out if I can still fight. If I still have it. Something like that. If I can deal with this, the pressure, with the fight week, with the media and everything. We got through.

“They’ve been telling me that I’m tough to the point that I get to believe that I am tough,” he added. “Then I recently just found out that I wasn’t tough. I wasn’t that tough. I’ve seen people going through it, and out of compassion, I’ve been trying to understand how it must feel, but you never get anywhere close to how it feels exactly.”