Cleveland’s championship drought ended May 14th 2016. A full month before LeBron and co. hoisted the NBA Championship trophy. One man, from the 216, climbed into the octagon at UFC 198 and took home UFC Heavyweight gold! Stipe Miocic knocked out then champ Fabricio Werdum to give Cleveland its first major Championship since 1964 and he hasn’t stopped defending the land since!

Steipe Miocic has been the prototypical fighting champ. Successfully defending the title twice knocking out former UFC Champ and K1 legend Allester Overreem at UFC 203 and Junior Dos Santos at UFC 211 putting him in the conversation with the greatest UFC heavyweights. Steipe Miocic likes knocking people out and if he can do it again January 20th; he’ll be the first Heavyweight champ to survive three fights with his belt creating Instant g.o.a.t status!

Standing in the way of a historic victory is Francis Ngannou who is recorded as having the hardest punch in UFC history. A punch that’s the equivalent of “being hit by a Ford Escort running at full speed” Dana White. Francis Ngannou is a living fantasy character, like something out of a Conan novel. The big man from Cammaron grew up shoveling sand into trucks for construction purposes throughout his youth which in some way explains his freakish strength. Later in France he lived homeless for years before one day just stumbling into an MMA gym. Six years later he’s contending for the top prize in the fight game. His power is incredible and he is as serious threat to Steipe’s crown.

Steipe Miocic is the fighting champ Cleveland deserves. He’s gone through everyone without hesitation and is seemingly always ready to defend his belt. On January 20th in Boston at UFC 220 will it be a history making night for the champ? Can Francis Ngannou do what no other heavyweight has been able to do vs the champ? It’s power vs power and it’ll be interesting to see if this fight leaves the 1st round. I doubt it will, neither fighter is into wasting the fans valuable time. I’ll be rooting for the home town king of sting myself, but whatever happens, it’ll be big-big-big!