To be completely honest, I don't normally get THAT excited for Heavyweight MMA fights. Here and there I get excited, like I definitely enjoyed the Cormier-Miocic Trilogy, that's for sure. But otherwise I just don't feel the hype around these fights too often. Most heavyweight battles tend to be who can catch the other with a decent shot first. These dudes are so big one shot can rock the other almost every time, and then it's over. Those type of fights are no doubt pretty exciting, but only briefly. Just tends to be predictable and repetitive.
OR a heavyweight just turns into a staring contest, or a very boring, no action grappling match. Most heavy dudes have like thirty seconds of intense grappling in them, before they are mostly gassed.
But this main event bout tonight, looks like it could be fantastic, hopefully anyway. There is a lot of intrigue with this one, one hundred percent!
Heavyweight UFC Champion Francis Ngannou is set to face FORMER TEAMMATE Ciryl Gane for the Heavyweight strap. These teammates don't seem to be cool either. Occasionally some fighters will fight teammates/former teammates, and it's purely business. No bad blood. Well, that really doesn't seem to be the case for this one.
Ngannou on the left, Gane on the right.
There seems to be several mild storylines that have led to these two not exactly getting along. I am not going to cover ALL of them. But I guess mainly, their disagreements come from Ngannou claiming he knocked out Gane with a headkick when they were training together. Gane claims he was only rocked.
This isn't footage of anyone getting knocked out or rocked, but it's still some very interesting sparring from these two from back when they trained together! Now it's a REAL fight for the belt!
These boys are HUGE and this footage was ACTIVE!! This fight will obviously be fought padless and with just those small UFC gloves, but man, imagine if these two go to war similar to this sparring.... It would be a breathtaking spectacle!
Gane, is the new kid on the block, but he's been obviously extremely successful in his short two 2.5 years with the UFC. Gane has absolutely taken advantage of that relatively short time and has stacked up an undefeated 7-0 record with the promotion. Overall as a pro MMA fighter, Gane is 10-0.
Gane is a super talented striker, but he is not your typical 'slug it out' type of heavyweight striker. This guy is for sure unique, and never before seen in this division. He literally moves like a welterweight. Hopping around, super light on his feet. Pure quickness in all his strikes. It's definitely an interesting style, and it's clearly working!
I do personally question how well rounded Gane is as an MMA fighter. I can't really identify a single one of his UFC fights where anyone really wanted to implement a heavy grappling gameplan against Gane. I just really want to see how well this guy can wrestle. But otherwise, his results are definitely too great to ignore.
Ngannou on the other hand, he is more of a typical heavyweight striker but like, on steroids (NOT literally). This man does have jaw-dropping power, even in a division where literally every fighter has serious power. I've also been impressed with Ngannou's evolution as a fighter. He came up as this big power puncher, as he he still is today, but over the years Ngannou has clearly worked hard to improve some noticeable holes in his game. At one point, Ngannou was very doubted after losing to Miocic and Lewis consecutively, but he proved a lot of people wrong after that, and it has been impressive to watch.
I think many people in the MMA community are leaning towards Gane to win this fight. Likely based on the sparring footage, and simply because of Gane's style and momentum he has going into this Championship fight. Perhaps there is validity to those points. Gane really is a cardio machine and just someone that never stays in one place much. It is somewhat hard to imagine Ngannou keeping that pace for very long.
That is, if the fight can get to the point where Ngannou's gas tank is in jeopardy. Francis can seriously put your lights out with just a PARTIALLY landed blow. I mean, I still remember vividly when Ngannou knocked out Cain Velasquez with like the edge of his fist or something. People were so confused when Cain fell. The knockout just didn't make sense. That is what you are dealing with when it comes to Ngannou's power. It is truly insane.
This fight should be all offense. Gane is not really known to ever be inactive. Ngannou usually stalks his prey himself.
I would say, that this fight is a slugger versus a volume striker, and to an extent, it definitely is. But since these two have sparred a lot, that's an interesting element. Also, Ngannou is coming into this fight looking quite slimmer than his usual heavily muscled self. It makes me wonder if he's ready for a long fight if he has needs to fight deep into the championship rounds. That's probably surprising to some, but that's just my take. Gane is an elusive cat, not a bad idea by Francis I would say.
Man, I am not even going to bother picking this fight. This will be intense I know that.
Screw it, I'll take Ngannou. I think he's super motivated and just a powerhouse. But man, betters everywhere should be nervous. I do not see a clear favorite here AT ALL.
Let me know who ya got!!
