The Most Inspiring Athlete In Professional Sports

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Hey Friends,

I’ve been thinking a lot about the most inspiring athletes in sports history.

When I searched on Google last night, the most popular answers all seemed to have a few names in common — Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Pat Tillman, Michael Oher, Jesse Owens, Tiger Woods, Pele, Lou Gehrig, Mia Hamm, Tom Brady, and Manny Pacquiao.

There are others, of course, but those names stuck out, regardless of where people grew up, who their favorite team was, or what sport they enjoyed the most.

But here’s the interesting part — Francis Ngannou wasn’t on any of the lists and is still (somehow) one of the most criminally overlooked athletes in the world.

Here's the summarized version for those who don’t know his story.

Francis Ngannou was born in Batié, a small town in rural Cameroon with just over 10,000 people.

He was raised by a single mother and constantly felt shame hearing stories about his dad’s violent past with his mother.

The family was poor, and with no free education in Cameroon at the time, Francis had to walk 2 hours per day to school and couldn’t afford books or adequate supplies.

And that’s if he even went to school.

Francis spent most of his “childhood” digging sand mines—shoveling massive piles of sand into trucks for over 12 hours per day—to help financially support his family.

He did this from the age of 10 to 17.

But after watching his dad pass away and being unable to contribute to the medical bills in a significant way, Francis set out to change his family's fortune forever.

He wanted to channel his aggression and become a world champion boxer.

But there was just one problem — the closest gym was hours away, training wasn’t very good, and there was no money to be made as a professional boxer in Cameroon.

So Francis decided to risk his life to find freedom and prosperity in Europe.

The journey from Cameroon to the Morocco–Spain border was very difficult.

It’s over 3,000 miles long—from Washington, DC, to San Francisco, California, is only 2,800 miles long—and Francis couldn’t take a plane or legally cross borders.

Google says it would take over 1,000 hours (41 days) to walk.

Francis started heading North from Cameroon towards Morocco.

He crossed the open border into Nigeria, but when he went to do the same from Nigeria to Niger, he ran into corrupt officers that wanted bribes to let him through.

Francis didn’t have any belongings and barely had any money, but some officers would literally strip people down and take everything from them.

So Francis came up with another solution — he covered his money in plastic and swallowed it so they couldn’t take it.

But that was only the beginning.

Next came Algeria, and the heart of the Sahara Desert, where temperatures can get to as high as 150 Fahrenheit during the day and as low as 20 degrees Fahrenheit at night.

Francis piled into the bed of a truck with 25 other people and crossed the desert.

He says that they didn’t have any water, and he was so dehydrated that when they finally got across the desert, he drank water from a well with dead animals in it.

This is what the truck carrying people through the Sahara desert looks like.

And if the journey wasn’t hard enough already, the last stage, from Morocco to Spain, was the hardest part.

Not only is the border extremely secure to prevent illegal immigration, but if you get caught by police, they put you in a truck and drop you back off in the Sahara desert.

Francis says Morocco is “a nightmare for immigration.”

Francis ended up struggling the most at this stage.

He first tried crossing the Morocco-Spain border on foot, but was severely cut by barbed wire and had to go to the hospital or risk death by losing too much blood.

He chose the hospital and was dropped back off in the Sahara desert.

The worst part? This happened six more times.

Francis would travel hundreds of miles to the border, only to get caught again and transported back to the 150 degrees Fahrenheit Sahara desert.

But eventually, Francis figured out a trick.

He tried crossing the border through water a few times but kept getting caught by radar, so he wrapped his boat in silver foil, and the radar couldn’t detect it.

That trick bought him enough time to make it into Spanish waters, where he was picked up by the Red Cross and arrested.

The good news? He spent two months in jail but was eventually given refugee status and allowed to stay in Spain.

From there, Francis Ngannou took a train to Paris.

The TLDR version is that he was homeless in Paris but eventually found a gym and was convinced by coaches to switch from Boxing to Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).

He got called up the UFC on his 29th birthday, and now, just a few years later…

Francis Ngannou is UFC Heavyweight Champion of the world.

If Francis Ngannou’s story ended there, it would probably be one of the most inspirational stories of personal triumph and achievement in sports history.

But he’s just getting started.

For those that don’t know, Francis Ngannou has been in a public dispute with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) over his contract for several years now.

Francis was paid just $600k for his last fight—for context, Tyson Fury made $30 million in the Deontay Wilder trilogy fight—and he estimates that he has sacrificed over $10 million by not agreeing to a new deal with the UFC.

Instead, he wants to change how all fighters are paid and the benefits they receive.

This is an incredible story of someone that has been through hell and back, literally, and has decided to sacrifice money for the one thing he values more — freedom.

I was able to sit down with Francis and talk through it all.

• His journey from Cameroon to Paris

• Sacrificing over $10 million for freedom

• Why he is taking 50% of his pay in Bitcoin

• The percentage chance that he fights Tyson Fury

• And more

Listen to the full interview on Apple or Spotify below. It was a fantastic conversation, and I hope you enjoy it.

Have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

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The details of today’s email were sourced through multiple podcasts, articles, and Twitter threads, including Francis’ appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, a deep-dive by Bleacher Report, and a Twitter thread by George Mack.

Make sure to check them out if you want a deeper dive!