French fans might have to wait a little longer for the UFC to head to their country.
Fernand Lopez, owner of the MMA Factory gym in Paris, as well as new Afro-French MMA promotion Ares FC, says despite developments in the legality of MMA in France, we likely won’t see an event there before 2021.
The coronavirus outbreak has forced the UFC to cancel three events so far, causing a big shuffle in the 2020 schedule. That makes France an unlikely location for the remainder of the year.
“Definitely, if we go out of the pandemic, the boxing federation in France will be ready to go by the month of August, probably September,” Lopez told MMA Junkie. “If they push back too much in September, everything will be OK.
“MMA is definitely legalized and they just need to bring the frame that we, the promotion, have to follow in order to have the good promotion in Paris. So that being said, if I go with what’s going on out there, I don’t think we’ll have the UFC in France before 2021. I don’t think that will happen.”
MMA in France has grown exponentially, especially with the rise of UFC heavyweight contender Francis Ngannou, who emerged out of Lopez’s gym in Paris.
Lopez attributes the rise to the added motivation for French fighters, considering that every fight requires them to travel abroad and compete in hostile territory.
“Because we had to travel to hostile territories to fight … we work a lot for that,” Lopez said. “In France, we still have a lot of talent in some sports like muay Thai, like judo. We have that combat background in France a lot, so now people started to believe. When MMA started, that was a long time ago – like 20 years ago in France. For a Frenchman to be in the UFC, that was very rare and people that were going to the UFC were just going for one fight.”
Before Ngannou, Lopez helped groom the likes of Taylor Lapilus, Mickeal Lebout and, most recently, the addition of a new rising star in the heavyweight division, Ciryl Gane.
“We didn’t believe at the time that a Frenchman can become something big in the UFC,” Lopez said. “And when I got Taylor Lapilus in the UFC, at that time, he was 22 and people didn’t understand what that kid was doing there because we didn’t have a lot of fights with him. But he did good with three wins out of four fights.
“After that, we got Mickeal Lebout, then we got Francis Ngannou. So yeah, MMA Factory brought that trust that a French guy can become something and move in. And that’s what Francis Ngannou shows in the UFC. And now Ciryl Gane just got in the top 15, and we still have more and more good talent coming.”
