Ciryl Gane or How does the first loss in your career taste?

Ciryl Gane was the central figure of the just-concluded UFC 270 numbered tournament, which took place Sunday morning CET. Although his name was by no means well known, especially among the martial arts layman, the bookmakers listed him as the favorite in the main event against reigning heavyweight champion, former training partner and “scariest” man on the planet Francis Ngannou.

Although he eventually succumbed to him after a five-round war and did not win the coveted UFC heavyweight championship belt, he certainly has nothing to be ashamed of.

After all, face it, last time Derick Lewis managed to last all rounds against “The Predator” as Francis Ngannou calls himself was on July 7, 2018 at UFC 226 (“titled Miocic vs Cormier), and that was quite a few years ago.

Since then, Ngannou has destroyed one opponent after another, winning four fights in the first round and most recently winning the championship belt last March in a memorable rematch with Stipe Miocic via second-round KO.

But few people know that at the professional level, that was the first defeat Ciryl Gane ever had to endure in the martial arts. Ciryl was an athletic type from a young age and probably like every little Frenchman started with a ball at his feet.

Fortunately, he did not follow in his father’s footsteps and was introduced to Muay Thai at university, where he fought thirteen professional fights and won all of them (nine of them by KO).

He then moved on to MMA, where he entered three fights in the Canadian TKO Major League MMA organization and won all of them before the time limit. His impressive fighting style impressed UFC President Dana White and in August 2019 he had a successful debut already under the UFC banner, forcing his opponent to tap out in the first round.

Since then, he’s managed to rack up five more wins, and given his fighting style and high fight IQ, he was given the opportunity to fight for the interim heavyweight title against Ngannou’s conqueror Derick Lewis last summer.

He gave the latter no chance in the fight and took the interim champion’s belt in the third round after a crushing KO to become the mandatory challenger for the heavyweight title in the most prestigious organization in the world after only three and a half years in MMA!

How did he react to the first ever defeat of his professional career? “First of all, I would like to thank my team and everyone who cheered me on. Congratulations to Francis, he was really good today. I’m a bit disappointed, definitely a bit sad. But it’s an amazing experience for me, I’m still at the beginning of my journey and the future is still ahead of me.”

At the press conference he did not hide his disappointment: “I’m really disappointed because I could have done more to win. We knew about Francis’ power, but we believed in the strength of my stance, so one of the ways the fight could have gone was for Francis to take the fight to the ground. And he really did that because of his power. He was really well prepared.”

When asked if he would like to see a rematch, he responded, ” I would definitely like a rematch. Now I’ll try to work on my weaknesses and I believe you’ll see an even better version of myself in the next fight.”

Will Ciryl get another title shot or will he have to fight for it? That’s a question no one seems to be able to crack right now. In fact, there are rumors in the backstage area that Francis Ngannou might leave the UFC. So we’ll have to wait a while for the heavyweight situation.

Source: Ultimate Fighting Championship