Francis Ngannou's UFC contract has already ended, claims MMA journalist

MMA journalist John Nash believes Francis Ngannou might already be a free agent officially. Nash claims to have come to the conclusion based on Ngannou and his manager's recent comments and section 4.3.2 of an average UFC contract.

Ngannou had previously said that he signed a five-year deal with the promotion in December 2017 ahead of his first title shot against Stipe Miocic at UFC 220. Section 4 of a UFC contract mentions several clauses in which a contract can be extended.

Nash recently revealed the details of section 4.3.2 of the average UFC contract, which states that the contract shall not be extended beyond the period of five years, irrespective of the clause mentioned previously. The journalist said on MMA on SiriusXM:

"Not withstanding the forgoing, the agreement will not be extended pursuant to this section four, beyond the date which is five (5) years after the Effective date of this agreement... Francis, in his video, basically hinted that something big had happened around UFC 282 with his contract. So that all that suggests to me, under the terms of reading these new UFC contracts, under what he's hinted, that his contract actually terminated in early part of December and he's officially now a free agent."

Catch Nash's comments on Francis Ngannou below:

Image courtesy: John S. Nash on Youtube

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Dana White claims he's pretty close to striking a deal with Francis Ngannou

Francis Ngannou is undoubtedly nearing the end of his UFC contract if it hasn't already ended. However, UFC president Dana White claims he is close to striking a deal with the heavyweight champion.

However, White specified that the feeling of being "all in" must be mutual. The UFC head honcho told ESPN MMA's, Brett Okamoto:

“I think that we’re heading in the right direction with Francis. There’s no doubt about it that this is where Francis should be and Francis should, you know, finish his legacy here at the UFC. And I think we’re pretty close to getting it done. We’re either all in or we’re not. If you want to be with us and you want to be here and, you know, you want to be a part of what we’re doing here, we want you here too. And if you don’t, then it’s mutual. There’s no problem with that. You can move on and do your thing.”

Watch White's interview with ESPN MMA below:

Francis Ngannou's manager Marquel Martin also sounded optimistic while talking about the deal during a recent video on the champion's YouTube channel. Martin believes that there's no reason for 'The Predator' to not sign the deal if it's mutually beneficial.