In Batié, they call the local football team the San San Boys, a nod to the sand mines which loom large over the town in Cameroon. It was there, aged 10, that Francis Ngannou made the decision, like many children of his age, to quit school and join the working ranks earning £1.50 a day.
Tonight in Saudi Arabia, his payday is estimated to be in excess of £15million as he bids to outbox Anthony Joshua. Throughout a remarkable lifetime, it is hope that the 6ft 4in, 18-stone man mountain has clung to above all else.
Hope for a better future beyond those sand mines, hope for survival as six times he made the treacherous crossing from Africa to Europe and failed, and hope of a home while living on the streets of Paris.
With what has gone before, it is not so far fetched that the man measured to have the biggest punch in the world can hope to beat Joshua, despite this being just the second professional bout of his boxing career. Joshua might be well advised to take heed to Ngannou’s favourite soundbite: “Never underestimate someone who has hope.”
This latest chapter was dismissed as little more than a gimmick by most boxing purists. A cage fighter — more precisely the mixed martial arts heavyweight world champion — the oft-called “baddest man on the planet” was lined up to make his boxing debut against Tyson Fury in October. Almost everyone watching that fight, bar the judges who called the result, believed the Cameroonian had won it having floored Fury in the third round.
Undeterred, it launched a new career, with Joshua the next potential upset on the cards.
Victory would be the ultimate fairytale for Ngannou. His parents divorced when he was six. He says of father Emmanuel, the only thing he gave him was a lesson in how not to live his life. Ngannou Snr, though, was a street fighter, which seems to have rubbed off on the next generation. With an absent father, money was tight. At school, he did not have enough for even pen and paper, while lunch was a luxury other children enjoyed.
So aged 10, he made the move to the mines. Two years earlier, an infatuation with the United States had already taken root, kicked off by Ngannou’s countryman, the footballer Roger Milla, dancing at a corner flag in celebration at scoring in the 1994 World Cup.
Ngannou liked to call himself American Boy, infatuated by films, TV stories and sports stars, including the boxer Mike Tyson, emerging from the US. The dream was always to become a boxer and, age 25, he set off on his quest to make it to mainland Europe. Ngannou, who couldn’t even swim, made his crossing attempts along the Straits of Gibraltar. Carrying a fake passport, which stated he was a 40-year-old construction worker from Senegal, he was picked up on the seventh occasion by the Red Cross and so began his bid for refugee status.
That quest took him to Paris where for two months he slept in a car park stairwell. He said: “I didn’t have anything but I didn’t care. I was happy because I knew this was an opportunity for me to make something of myself.”
“Anyone can do anything he puts his mind to as long as he believes in it”
Francis Ngannou
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That opportunity came in the form of coach Didier Carmont, who spotted his talent in a gym, gave him a place to stay and introduced him to the world of MMA. In two years, he was on the bill of an Ultimate Fighting Championship event in Las Vegas, eventually rising the ranks to become a world champion.
His brief foray into boxing has come with infinitely greater riches, his fight against Fury earning him just shy of £8m.
Tonight, he has a chance to derail Joshua’s career. Such is his inexperience, he is the clear underdog although, with a punch which UFC president Dana White says is the same as “getting hit by a Ford Escort going as fast as it can”, anything is possible.
Whatever the result, Ngannou hopes his story can resonate. As he puts it: “Anyone can do anything he puts his mind to as long as he believes in it, as long as he does the right thing and doesn’t give up on his dream.”