UFC Fight Night 226 Beforemath: Ciryl Gane’s Path to Success

It seems like only yesterday Ciryl Gane was the hottest prospect at heavyweight and seemed destined for the title. Then he ran into Francis Ngannou who showed off his wrestling chops late in the fight to secure the win. Another shot saw him massacred in less than a round by Jon Jones. This weekend, Gane gets to test his grappling prowess again and take on Sergey Spivak to prove to his home country of France that he’s improved as a fighter at UFC Fight Night 226.

Today’s edition of Beforemath will dive into both Gane and Spivak as we attempt to answer several questions about both. Is Gane a threat at heavyweight any longer and has he developed basic anti-grappling techniques? Has Spivak learned from his loss to Tom Aspinall and worked out how to deal with an elusive, mobile opponent?

Spivak: Learn from Your Mistakes

Spivak has been on a tear since losing to Marcin Tybura in 2020. Now ranked seventh, Spivak has gone 6-1 with his lone loss to Aspinall and has won three straight since then. The key to his success has been in the clinch and he will look to do that again at “UFC Paris.”

While Gane is tricky, he’s not as astute as Aspinall in the clinch which gives “Polar Bear” a middle ground to work with. He will need to be able to get to the clinch and show that a slippery opponent isn’t the key to beating him any longer. So how does the Polar Bear Team talent do that? How does Spivak get to the ground despite having a large power disadvantage in many of his fights? If Gane is lazy with his strikes, which is admittedly asking for a lot, Spivak has shown the ability to get the fight to the ground on his terms. Spivak will have to find his own ways to get in on Gane proactively.

Enter the heavyweight king: Tai Tuivasa. Tuivasa has a single moment of true, clever success against Gane. To land a low kick, Tuivasa (1) mirrored Gane’s stance, which is southpaw. To close the distance, (2) Tuivasa steps through to orthodox and reaches to control the lead hand of Gane. Finally, (3) Tuivasa smashes the leg of Gane with a low kick.

Spivak can use the cross step similarly to Tuivasa and close distance. What would differ is what Spivak would do once in the pocket which is grabbing the single leg or a collar tie for a clinch exchange. One of Spivak’s better ways of getting his opponent to his realm is the inside trip. This is generally Spivak’s second line of attack, preceded by a single leg entry, and often followed by an attempt at a hip toss. But for the inside trip, and how it works, I want to throw it over to Henry Cejudo instead. Cejudo’s pedigree in Olympic wrestling speaks for itself and that inside trip is his bread and butter.

In his rematch with Demetrious Johnson, Cejudo managed to use the inside trip to get the ever-squirrely Johnson down. (1) At the onset, “The Messenger” has a whizzer on the left arm. Johnson, knowing Cejudo’s threat from here, keeps his hips and feet back anticipating the trip. But the breadth of Cejudo’s experience shines in this situation. (2) As the Fight Ready MMA champion steps inside the leg of Johnson, he uses that whizzer to pull Johnson up and into a chest-to-chest position where he can get the leverage needed to torque over the reaped leg and (3) finish the takedown.

As we will look at later, Spivak hadn’t figured this out by the time he fought Tom Aspinall in 2021. Looking for the inside trip, Spivak didn’t pull Aspinall into that chest-to-chest position and that allowed Aspinall room to work and land the elbow that did him in. Simply put, this will not be acceptable with Gane either. With more weapons to choose from, Gane can punish Spivak in the exact same manner during these exchanges. Circling back to the chain wrestling of Spivak, the process is pretty straightforward.

(1) When Hardy throws out a jab that Spivak is comfortable with, he slips his head backwards and steps deep into the pocket. (2) As he gets in on the single leg, Spivak isn’t happy with how he’s in on the takedown and comes up to a body lock. (3) Hardy tries to shuck off the clinch, but Spivak stays engaged.

With the underhook on the right side, (4) Spivak looks to go to a uchi mata, which is the hip toss with his leg between Hardy’s. (5) Hardy manages to kick his leg out but doing so is a mistake as now he’s on one leg. Spivak would then (6) bring his right leg across and (7) completes the throw utilizing the uki goshi.

With this order of operations for Spivak, he has takedown attempt after takedown attempt and can find ways to drive his opponents to the fence to chew up minutes if needed while he inches his way to the next takedown, whatever may present itself. Once he’s to the body lock, Spivak can take a note from Jones and look to go to the back to drag Gane to the ground.

In their title fight, Jones managed to (1) go around the back and keep his hands locked. (2) As Gane begins to fight the hands, Jones voluntarily lets his grip go and goes over the top for the seatbelt grip which allows Jones to (3) get to the back more and bundle Gane over.

With Gane showing that he’s not great when it comes to chain wrestling defense, Spivak can exploit this. Wrestling is second nature to the Moldovan fighter and he could outclass Gane in his realm. Spivak may be a bit of an underdog against Gane. There are two most probably outcomes with this fight: a mailing on either side. Spivak might be the underdog in this bout, but it is very winnable for him.

Gane’s Confidence Crisis

Gane may have a confidence crisis going into “UFC Paris.” Gane, who saw both of his title hopes dashed because of the grappling portion of the sport, will have to come up against yet another grappler that could defeat the former interim champion. This fight will be a crossroads in Gane’s career path. Jones has been hinting at retirement after his fight with Stipe Miocic. If that’s the case, then the bogeyman of the division is gone and we are looking at Gane vs. Sergei Pavlovich or Aspinall for the vacant title.

This is a must win for “Bon Gamin,” but with Spivak’s insistence on fighting his game, it will be up to the fluid Gane to adopt a plan to win. So how would Gane go about doing that and not falling into the same old trap he saw himself in against Ngannou and Jones? The answer is short: create space.

Spivak’s game is reliant on the ability to close distance and grab a hold on his opponents. Gane will want to make sure to move laterally, as is par the course for his type of fighting, and make sure to stay out of any clinch positions.

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Gane uses the push kick, as animated above, to create a long, spearing weapon to intercept an opponent before they can get close. The kick to the midsection deters an opponent from coming in, pushes them backwards and allows Gane time to circle out and away. Against Jones, he failed to do this, and it was catastrophic, but against Ngannou, we saw the MMA Factory fighter utilize several techniques to warn Ngannou that getting to a clinch will not be free and damage will follow.

We’ve all seen Yair Rodriguez’ up-elbow knockout of Chan Sung Jung about a million times by now. Against Ngannou, I was surprised to see Gane use it in the clinch. (1) Ngannou initiated a clinch and didn’t grab an underhook on either side. This allowed Gane to (2) drop down and free his arm. The dropping motion saw Gane (3) bring his right elbow over the top and land on Ngannou. As we will demonstrate later, Spivak is vulnerable in the clinch and doesn’t always break cleanly. But first, we need to talk the step-up knee.

Shortly after the up-elbow, Ngannou was pressuring again. It’s important to note here that Gane is (1) in southpaw with Ngannou advancing in orthodox. As Ngannou steps forward, Gane (2) launches his left knee into the midsection of Ngannou that folds him over for just a moment. This is where the stance comes into play. Because Gane was in southpaw at the start of the exchange, his left knee is what was thrown and will come down in front, switching him to orthodox. This allows Gane to rotate his new rear foot around Ngannou’s lead hand looking to clinch up. (3) Now in orthodox and pivoted away, Gane will put his lead arm between him and Francis Ngannou, pushing Ngannou backwards, and (4) exiting the exchange.

The ability to create space in these situations where Spivak can move from one takedown attempt to another is the crux of this fight for Gane. If he can keep space between himself and the forthcoming Moldovan, the day will be his. But there will be a point where Gane will find himself in the clinch and he will be forced to execute there as well.

Enter Aspinall. The United Kingdom standout is one of the most technically savvy fighters in the heavyweight division and it’s carried him to great success thus far. When Aspinall fought Spivak, handing him his last loss, he was mobile, elusive, and punishing. This is very similar to what we see in every Gane fight, but Aspinall did find himself in the clinch and capitalized quickly. Remember that knee?

As Spivak (1) clinched up with Aspinall, Aspinall did a good job staying out of a chest-to-chest situation and kept his hips and feet back. Remember, Spivak likes to get chest to chest to drop on doubles and look for trips or sweeps. With his legs back, the knee is queued up. As seen with the Ngannou diagram from earlier, Gane is well equipped for this as well. (2) Aspinall fires a knee in and Spivak drops his left hand to try to block the blow. Aspinall sees this and (3) throws a right elbow up the middle that will drop Spivak and lead to the end of the fight.

Knowing that Spivak is very good in the clinch when it comes to throwing but will fold if anything is thrown to the body should be a major point of attack should Gane find himself there. While he may not knock him out as easily as Aspinall did, the body work will tire Spivak out, deter him from clinching up again, and lulling him to sleep as Gane picks him apart at range. If Spivak can’t get in on Gane, he will be dead in the water.

At the end of the day, this fight is actually so entertaining because of the unknowns. Will Gane fold at the first sign of a takedown attempt? Can Spivak weather the storm, get in and get the fight to his world? It’s the reason we watch fights. This weekend, Gane will have the chance to keep his name in the title race for the day Jones retires. We know the rematch will never come, so Jones leaving may be his only chance to win the title.