Dana White has labelled Francis Ngannou 's gameplan for his UFC 270 win against Ciryl Gane as "genius".
Ngannou won the first decision of his MMA career as he was forced to wrestle Gane over their five-round title fight due to injured knee ligaments.
'The Predator' wore knee sleeves for the bout after a botched takedown attempt from a sparring partner less than a month before the fight injured his knees.
Fans questioned if White - who didn't put the belt on Ngannou after his win - was angry with the heavyweight champion, but White insisted he was dealing with "stuff going on backstage".
And White labelled the main event of UFC 270 as "a shocker" but praised Ngannou for his performance.
“I think the heavyweight main event was a shocker. I don’t think anybody expected to see Francis come in and wrestle," ” White said during a Q&A session on ESPN+.
"During the fight, I was very surprised [by Ngannou’s game plan]. After the fight, it was genius. It was genius for him to go work on his wrestling.
"I guarantee you — I don’t know this for a fact — but I would guarantee you that Ciryl Gane did almost no wrestling to prepare for that fight. So to come in and implement the game plan that he had, it was brilliant.”
Ngannou is not contractually obligated to fight for the UFC again after his recent win and is free to leave the promotion in December.
But White would love to match Ngannou up against former pound-for-pound No.1 Jon Jones next.
“I think another big fight if it’s possible to get it done would be Jon Jones and Francis,” he added.
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Jones has been poised to make his heavyweight debut since vacating his 205-pound title two years ago.
He was in talks to fight Ngannou after the Cameroonian won the title last March, but White said 'Bones' demanded $30million for the fight.
And Ngannou said he would rather crossover to boxing and fight WBC champion Tyson Fury next instead of Jones.
"If you give me the two options, I would choose fighting Tyson Fury," Ngannou told reporters including Mirror Fighting before UFC 270.
"After fighting Stipe [Miocic], the Jon Jones fight was on the table, but it seems like nobody really cares about it, so I don't know.
"Also, we don't even know what is the position of Jon Jones right now. I'm not planning my life based on that. I will plan my life based on the facts."
