Gugnon on a hostile Arena: “That suits me, it's the job”
French newcomer Noah Gugnon speaks for the first time about his fight with Milos Janicic in Belgrade, and says a crowd rooting against him is exactly what he wants.
Three days out from the fight, in front of reporters in Belgrade, Noah Gugnon got the question every visiting fighter gets in this city: what happens when the whole building is pulling for the other guy. The Frenchman did not dance around it.
“I know Janicic, I have watched his fights. He is a very aggressive fighter, just like me. He has good boxing skills, but I think I can do a good job against him. I know the crowd in the Arena will be on his side, but that suits me, it is the job. I came here to smash him and that is that.”
Until now only one voice had been heard in this matchup. Milos Janicic had been promising a knockout and calling out Bojkovic from the press conference stage, while Gugnon was a name on the fight poster. Now he has spoken, and the first thing he did was fold the crowd into his own math instead of pretending it is not there.
Who is the Frenchman opening the main card?
Gugnon is 25 and fights at lightweight. His resume reads like this:
- nine wins and two losses as a professional
- five straight victories, none of them going the distance
- his last three wins came under the Ares FC banner, against opponents holding a combined 19-3 record at the time
He trains in Sofia and reached the UFC after runs in Ares and Bellator. Not once in his career has he left anything to the judges. That number says more about him than the record does, because it explains why he lives in the first round and why the UFC signed him as a debutant unlikely to produce a quiet fight.
Janicic is calling for knockout number twenty
Across the cage stands a fighter who makes history before the gloves touch. Janicic is the first fighter from Montenegro in UFC history, he is 29, and he carries an eight-fight winning streak without a single judges’ decision. His last MMA appearance came at the close of last year, when he beat longtime UFC lightweight Alex Oliveira.
His plan for Gugnon is no secret. He said it himself.
“When he burns out and runs out of gas, that is when I will beat him up properly and finish the fight.”
The number he keeps repeating since signing is twenty.
“They know everything. Expect another knockout, another finish. The twentieth of my career and that is that.”
He described the day the call came from the biggest promotion in the sport without reaching for a big word.
“When I opened the email and saw the contract, it really was a great feeling. It is nice to see those three red letters, UFC.”
Why the crowd is part of the calculation
Half the build-up to the Belgrade card has run on home advantage. The Serbian and Montenegrin fighters on the bill get an arena that knows them, and Gugnon gets one seeing him for the first time. His answer to that was not defiance so much as arithmetic: noise is part of the job, and the fight is won inside the cage, not in the stands.
There is a practical edge to that line. Both men live off early pressure and both finish what they start, so fifteen minutes of this looks unlikely. Whoever loses discipline first because of the atmosphere pays for it, because neither one knows how to sit on a lead.
Their bout opens the main card at Belgrade Arena on Saturday, August 1, with Uros Medic against Daniel Rodriguez closing the night. Two debutants with no judges’ decisions between them get the most watched slot before the main event. Judging by how both of them work, the first whistle from the Arena and the last punch of this fight will not be far apart.
