Francis Ngannou pays respects to Charles Oliveira for his "inspirational" story in MMA

Francis Ngannou clearly has a tremendous amount of respect for Charles Oliveira. In fact, the back-and-forth Twitter responses between the reigning UFC heavyweight champion and the former UFC lightweight champion indicate a lot of mutual respect.

It all started with Ngannou posting a photo alongside Oliveira at the UFC Performance Institute. In the caption, Ngannou stated if he had the jiu-jitsu of 'Do Bronx', he would be able to fight well into his 50s.

In a tweet responding to Ngannou's initial Twitter post, Oliveira said:

"The champ! Your legacy and history are inspirational"

In a quote tweet response following that up, Ngannou said:

"Your journey to become champion and proving to never give up is inspirational champ!"

See the tweets below:

Ngannou and Oliveira have previously shared spots together on UFC cards, namely UFC on Fox 17. On the December 2015 card, Ngannou opened up the event by knocking out Luis Henrique while Oliveira defeated Myles Jury via first-round guillotine choke.

Oliveira is riding an 11-fight win streak and is looking to regain the UFC lightweight championship that he lost on the scale. 'Do Bronx' aims to do so when he takes on Islam Makhachev at UFC 280 in October. Makhachev has already emerged as a sizable betting favorite, leading into this vacant title match between the two at 155 pounds.

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Francis Ngannou's road back to competition

Francis Ngannou is looking to get in at least one more fight this calendar year. Ngannou has been discussing a possible return to action in December.

'The Predator' was last seen notching his first-ever world heavyweight championship defense when he beat Ciryl Gane by way of unanimous decision at UFC 270 in January.

Ngannou has teased everything from his sophomore UFC heavyweight title defense to a hybrid rules fight against WBC and lineal heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury.

There are also rumblings of an interim UFC heavyweight title bout going down this year between Stipe Miocic and Jon Jones as Francis Ngannou heals. Either a rubber match versus the UFC's all-time great-heavyweight or a fight with the overall MMA GOAT, in the eyes of many, would presumably entice Ngannou.

Ngannou has notched meaningful mixed martial arts victories over Stipe Miocic, Alistair Overeem, Junior dos Santos, Cain Velasquez, Curtis Blaydes, and Andrei Arlovksi.