One former UFC heavyweight champion has spoken out about the next heavyweight title fight.

Fabricio Werdum is on a two-fight winning streak, with victories over the likes of Walt Harris and Marcin Tybura.

Werdum will be watching closely as Stipe Miocic will try to defend the belt against rising star Francis Ngannou at UFC 220. The reason for this is because Werdum is very interested in fighting the winner. He believes the winner will be Ngannou as he told Portal do Vale Tudo.

“Ngannou has a lot of power, but I don’t think he’s very technical. However, I still believe he’ll surprise Miocic and knock him out.

They both enjoy trading shots, so if Miocic doesn’t have the right strategy, that big black guy will knock him out. Ngannou is very confident and that can make a difference, if he really connects, you’re going down, as we saw with Overeem.”

“I can already see myself submitting him, though, and becoming champion again. That’s my goal, to have a third belt on my wall and I really do believe it’ll happen. I’m sure I’m next. I’ll be waiting for him in April or so.”

The UFC heavyweight champion has been very vocal about how he is not pleased with his UFC contract situation. In fact, he has been doing so since last year. His displeasure with the promotion can be traced back to his big win over Alistair Overeem at UFC 203 in Cleveland, OH.

This event marked a home state showdown for the then newly-minted heavyweight champion. Miocic picked up the win over the former Dream and Strikeforce champ via first round KO to retain his belt. As a result of that win, he pulled $200,000 less than the contender for his trouble.

Although Miocic did fight again under that contract deal which included knocking out Junior dos Santos at UFC 211 in May of this year, the UFC champion has not been seen inside the cage since then.

However, everything got worked out and Miocic is back to fight in the Octagon again.

UFC 220 is set to take place on Saturday, January 20, 2018 at TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts.

The main card will air on pay-per-view while the preliminary card will air on FOX Sports 1 and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass. Here is the updated card:

Champ Stipe Miocic vs. Francis Ngannouo – for heavyweight title
Champ Daniel Cormier vs. Volkan Oezdemir – for light heavyweight title
Islam Makhachev vs. Gleison Tibau
Dustin Ortiz vs. Alexandre Pantoja
Thomas Almeida vs. Rob Font
Shane Burgos vs. Calvin Kattar
Kyle Bochniak vs. Brandon Davis
Maryna Moroz vs. Jamie Moyle