In Anaheim (California) this Sunday, “Bon Gamin” thought it was entering the big leagues. But Ciryl Gane, a Frenchman with a meteoric trajectory, was unable to stall the decisive attack. The one that would have allowed him to place France once and for all on the world map of MMA. He will end up leached by the “Predator” Francis Ngannou, whose power as the fight goes by seems unrivaled. Winner by unanimous decision of the judges – 48-47, 48-47, 49-46 – the Cameroonian, 35, keeps his world champion belt and remains, in the eyes of UFC aficionados – number 1 organization in MMA – the strongest man in the world.
Ciryl Gane, he fell in front of his “end boss”, as he nicknamed Francis Ngannou, ultimate mountain on the road to coronation. At the very last level, this fifth and final recovery where everything was still possible between the two men. The culmination of a fight between the two offspring of the MMA Factory, a world-class Parisian incubator, whose intrigue took almost everyone back to the Honda Center. We expected an offensive Ngannou to bend the deal in the first two rounds, and a Gane to contain the golgoth and force the decision on the next three.
It was quite the opposite. More accurate fighter striking (percussion techniques), Gane kept Ngannou at a distance for a long time. Barely timorous at the start, the Yonnais got out of the woods in less than a minute: very mobile, clever in his approaches, the Yonnais tucked in his jabs, alternated the keys with the help of the knee, the elbow, placed a return kick.
Above all, he exhausts Ngannou with his regular changes of guard, all while varying the distances: as soon as Ngannou seems within striking distance, Gane comes directly to the clinch (combat phase where the two opponents are in close combat) to cancel the blows of the Cameroonian. After two rounds, the scenario is beyond that hoped for the Frenchman, who, unlike Ngannou, is used to taking his time in the octagon (15 minutes on average in the cage, one of the highest of the circuit).
Fatal Ground Holds
Without a solution in ten minutes and trailing in points, Ngannou must then win the last three rounds. Change of approach: the Cameroonian has progressed in certain compartments, including taking to the ground. But that, nobody really knows, the public had barely guessed ten months earlier during Ngannou’s last success for the heavyweight belt against the American Stipe Miocic.
A huge takedown (the fact of tipping the opponent to the ground) in the third recovery will then change everything. Thrown to the ground while trying his hand at the high-kick, Gane wears himself out to extricate himself from the 116.5 kilos held on the scale the day before. Ngannou understands that to get Gane’s skin, he will have to be taken care of on the ground. Two takedowns later, the Cameroonian won the round thanks to his wrestling phases, unheard of for the puncher, accustomed to knockouts in less than three minutes.
The seizures multiply, and the fight turns, irremediably. In addition to his obvious power, the Cameroonian triumphed thanks to assets that many underestimated him: the grip on the ground, and the cardio – “We can’t lose this fight on a cardio problem!”, whispered his trainer Fernand Lopez to Gane, at the end of the 4th round. And this teaching, implacable: Ngannou is no longer a simple puncher. He has become a complete fighter, a pure offshoot of MMA. And perhaps never seemed stronger than this Sunday.