PARIS – Ciryl Gane is hoping to recreate last year’s magic in Paris.
Gane (11-2 MMA, 8-2 UFC) meets Serghei Spivac (16-3 MMA, 7-3 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 226 main event at Accor Arena in Paris. The event streams on ESPN+.
Gane has put on some great performances throughout his career – including an interim title-winning finish of Derrick Lewis. He looks to have another flawless showing against Spivac.
“I just hope this weekend I’m going to do a masterclass, like we say,” Gane told MMA Junkie. “A perfect performance, and I’m going to do my best for that.”
Gane also headlined the UFC’s debut show in Paris, where he slugged it out with knockout artist Tai Tuivasa before getting the finish in Round 3. It was a special moment for “Bon Gamin” in front of his home crowd, but can he top it?
“Top it? It’s going to be hard,” Gane admitted. “The scenario of the last fight unfortunately was really dangerous, but it was perfect. It was like a movie – a bad thing coming, but you come back stronger and you reverse the situation.
“It was really perfect, and we don’t want that for this fight. I just want to finish the fight before the end, and the fans I think are going to be happy about that.”
With numerous ground finishes on Spivac’s resume and Gane coming off a submission loss, Gane expects to be fending off takedowns right off the bat.
“I think the best option for him is to go on the ground,” Gane said. “And I know this is a big option for him for every fight because he has a good level in it. So yeah, 100 percent in the first second of the first round, he’s going to try. He’s going to go for it, for sure.”
Gane is eager to rebound from his quick submission loss to Jon Jones for the vacant heavyweight crown at UFC 285, which he says taught him a valuable lesson.
“I did some mistakes in my fight with Jon Jones,” Gane said. “I’m not (getting) started really early in the game, so that’s why it was not possible to fix this because the fight finished really early. So now, this is my mission to be aware in the first second of the first round.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 226.
