Francis was born and raised in the village of Batié, Cameroon. He lived in poverty and had little formal education growing up. At 10 years old, Ngannou started working in a sand quarry in Batié because of a lack of funds. As a youngster, he was approached by various gangs in his village to join them. However, Ngannou refused and instead decided to use his father's negative reputation as a street fighter as motivation to do something positive and pursue boxing. It was a life long dream to become a world champion; a dream many around him said he was crazy for believing in.

In his early 20’s, Francis decided to head to Paris, France, to pursue a professional boxing career. However upon reaching Europe, he was jailed for two months in Spain for illegally crossing the border. After living homeless on the streets of Paris, he began training for free in August 2013 under Didier Carmont. Being a fan of Mike Tyson, Ngannou was originally interested in learning how to box until his coach introduced him to the sport of MMA. In record time he would make his way to the largest promotion in the sport, the UFC.

After joining the UFC, Francis quickly became a fan favorite due to his humble demeanor and other worldly knockout power. He has won 9 of his 12 UFC fights by knockout, with the last four occurring within a total time of two and a half minutes. With his victory at UFC 260 on March 27th, Francis not only defeated the greatest UFC heavyweight of all time, but he has also become the first ever African born UFC Heavyweight Champion in history. He followed up this historic win with a equally massive title defense. He defeated an undefeated challenger at UFC 270 on January 22nd, 2022. Francis went into this fight with a gravely injured knee and was able to pull out a convincing victory, cementing himself further as the biggest champ on the planet.

Outside of the cage, Francis started to Francis Ngannou Foundation back in his home village to help build out the community and create a structured and safe environment for the children of Batié. On the entertainment side Francis made his feature film debut with the release of the blockbuster film, FAST AND FURIOUS 9 in May of 2021. He was next seen in another big franchise with an appearance in JACKASS FOREVER, released on February 4th, 2022.