Francis Ngannou is back in training and has ben working alongside one of Rizin’s heavyweight stars. Tsuyoshi Sudario took to Instagram to share a photo of him and the newly crowned UFC heavyweight champion:
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Sudario was a major star in the Japanese sport of sumo wrestling before making his MMA debut last year. He recently suffered the first defeat of his career at the hands of Shoma Shibisai at Rizin 28.
What better way to work on upgrading your skillset than travelling to Las Vegas to work with a UFC heavyweight champion? That seems to be Sudario’s thinking as he talked about how excited he was to be training alongside Ngannou.
Rizin has never crowned a heavyweight champion but with three wins out of four for the promotion Sudario is surely in contention. He is a big name in Japan due to his successful career in sumo and seems serious about taking his MMA career to the next level.
Interestingly Ngannou relaunched his career in Asia. The Cameroonian was on a two fight losing skid when he knocked out Curtis Blaydes at UFC Beijing in 2018.
The rest, as they say, is history. He went on to win his next five fights capturing the UFC heavyweight title in the process.
Sudario would love to emulate the African by turning his career around after a disappointing defeat. Rizin fans will be looking forwards to seeing what tricks he might have picked up during his time in Las Vegas.
