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Francis Ngannou says he ate 'rotten' food as he opened up about the extreme poverty he faced in his upbringing.
It was a long, hard journey for Ngannou to get to the UFC. He had an arduous task to trek to the Mediterranean Sea, where he could forge a career.
He worked in a sand mine in Cameroon alongside his siblings from the age of nine, before leaving Africa for Europe.
The former UFC champion travelled from Cameroon to Spain via North Africa as he detailed his struggles in Morocco, where he stayed for 'one year' - calling it the 'toughest' part of his journey to becoming a combat superstar.
Speaking to Steven Bartlett (@Steven on Instagram and TikTok) on The Diary of a CEO podcast, Ngannou revealed the great lengths he had to go through to get to Spain.
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The 37-year-old explained how he lived in harsh conditions, residing in deserts and forests to reach his end goal.
And he was fuelled by food from the market trash, including rotten tomatoes and chicken legs.
"What you eat is everything that you find," he said.
"Sometimes there are people that can make a trap and try to get some animals. But for the most part we will wait for night-time to go to the market because the undercover police are always around."
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Ngannou added: "We will wait for night-time to go to the market for the market trash and then find rotten stuff like that they throw away whether it's tomatoes, potatoes or chicken legs because they didn't eat chicken legs."
Ngannou eventually made it to Europe, where he trained MMA in France before joining the UFC.
He won the UFC heavyweight title to cap off his remarkable journey before having not one but two lucrative boxing bouts against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
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'The Predator' will return to the cage in his next appearance as he's set to make his Professional Fighters League debut against Renan Ferreira.
Topics: Francis Ngannou, UFC
Nasir Jabbar