Renan Ferreira has issued an explanation for a comment he made during Thursday’s press event with upcoming opponent Francis Ngannou.
The 6ft 8in giant will battle Ngannou on the latter’s return to MMA on October 19 in Saudi Arabia. However, in advance of the fight ‘Problema’ drew flak online for what many saw as insensitive comments towards Ngannou, whose 15-month-old son Kobe tragically passed away earlier this year.
In comments delivered to the media in Portuguese and translated by an interpreter, Ferreira said that he was going to “be the biggest problem” that Ngannou has encountered in his “tough year” — comments that many people online viewed as a reference to the devastating loss of Ngannou’s son.
However, soon after Ferreira delivered a message to social media in which he apologised for his comments being misconstrued and said that he was referring to Ngannou’s losses to Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou in the boxing ring and not to tragic events in his personal life.
“Hey, everyone. Today we had the press conference and I saw a few things came out in the press that were completely distorted when speaking about Francis, saying that I was the biggest problem for him this year, but I was referring to the fight,” he said in Portuguese, with translation via MMA Junkie.
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I just want to make something clear. @francisngannou is a great man & i respect him. When i said that i was going to be his biggest
this year i was talking about Anthony Joshua & Tyson Fury, not about his family. I am a father myself
— RenanProblemaMMA (@MmaProblema) August 23, 2024
“What I said has no connection to his personal life, of everything he just went through with son. I’m a father, I have kids as well, and I will never touch such a delicate subject. I wouldn’t go that low. My condolences to Francis. I feel for his loss. I’m a father, I have kids too, I would never say something like that.
“Everything I said was about Francis Ngannou’s year, you get me. He’s coming off two losses in boxing, two year layoff (in MMA), at no point did I want to talk about his personal life and everything that went down with his son. That wasn’t my intention. That’s not me, it’s not in my character. I’d never go that low.
“People are talking and distorting everything into a crazy version of what happened today. I just wanted to clarify what happened today, that it has nothing to do with what they’re saying. It’s not me doing something that low. I just wanted to make that clear.”
