Ciryl Gane was ready to face the music following the most humbling loss of his career.
At the UFC 285 post-fight press conference, Gane was the second fighter to appear and he answered questions from the media about his devastating setback at the hands of Jon Jones in Saturday’s main event.
Jones took just two minutes to bring down Gane and then finish him off with a guillotine choke. This win secured a UFC Heavyweight Championship that had been vacant following Francis Ngannou’s departure. Gane did not make excuses for the defeat.
“Disappointed, of course,” Gane said. The biggest emotion is anger about me. It was really angry. Because yes, we accepted this fight, it was not short-notice, but the time was not too long, but we worked a lot, we spent a lot of time. Because I trained with sparring partners, I am really mad at myself. I also spent lots of time with my coaches and my family during the fight. So I’m really angry.”
Gane entered the fight coming off of a knockout win over Tai Tuivasa in his home country of France, but failed to provide much resistance to Jones, who was returning from a three-year hiatus from competition. The submission loss also marked the first time Gane failed to go the distance in his career.
Asked what was most disappointing about his UFC 285 main event performance, Gane couldn’t pinpoint one area.
“Everything,” Gane said. All of it. My striking at first, my entrance. My entrance into the game and my beginning will be my topic. … We didn’t look good and after that, we had opportunities because we twisted, I don’t know exactly how we did that. But we go in the clinch, we go back on the ground, he tried to hug my back. I defended my back, face to face, he tried to sweep me, I was comfortable because he doesn’t have a good guillotine and I know that, but I was afraid about the referee.
” I remember my coach telling me, “Don’t remain in that position.” This was a terrible position during training. So I tried to move and [Jones] read that exactly at the same way that I moved and he f****** me up. S***.”
With Ngannou out, Gane was selected to fight Jones at heavyweight. Gane didn’t consider Jones to be in any physical disadvantage.
“It was a short feeling, but he’s a real heavyweight, for sure,” Gane said.
Jones’ performance brought Gane’s grappling limitations back to the forefront, a weakness that Ngannou also exploited when he defeated Gane at UFC 270 in January 2022.
When Gane goes back to the lab, his first priority will be to shore up his ground game.
” This is a serious loss,” Gane stated. This is my first loss. Francis’s loss was not a major loss. It was something I did learn, though it wasn’t too significant. This one was a big loss. This is it. I have to move forward. I will be going back to the gym .”
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” The first thing I want to do is go straight back to the gym to improve my ground game,” continued he. “Yes, he’s a really high-level wrestler in the ground game, but we worked a lot, but I don’t have good reflexes. So I’m really angry at myself, so yeah, I’m going to work on it.”
Source: https://www.mmafighting.com/2023/3/5/23625831/ciryl-gane-angry-at-myself-after-quick-loss-to-jon-jones-at-ufc-285?rand=96749
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