LAS VEGAS – Ciryl Gane isn’t the sort of fighter to be shouting his name from the rooftops. Indeed, even after his finish of a former UFC heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos at UFC 256, the big Frenchman is keeping his feet firmly on the ground.
Undefeated heavyweight Gane (7-0 MMA, 4-0- UFC) scored a second-round TKO finish, with the fight-ending strike, an elbow aimed to the side of Dos Santos’ head, prompting debate over its legality, with the elbow appearing to land toward the back of the Brazilian’s head as he turned away from Gane’s attack.
Dos Santos (21-9 MMA, 15-8 UFC) protested the strike to referee Jerin Valel immediately after the fight’s conclusion, and after seeing the replays of the finish, Gane admitted during the post-fight press conference that he wasn’t 100 percent sure about the strike himself and needed confirmation from the official that there were no issues with the finishing sequence.
“I really didn’t understand, but then the referee came to see me and said, ‘It was legal, it was legal.’ So yes, it was legal,” he grinned.
Claiming a decisive finish over a respected former champion like Dos Santos will only serve to raise Gane’s stock in the UFC heavyweight division, but the softly-spoken Parisian declined the opportunity to shoot his shot and call out one of the division’s top names for his next fight. As he explained, it simply isn’t his style.
“(I’m calling out) Nobody,” he said. “You understand who I am. Anyone, anywhere. I just want to do my job. That’s it.”
One potential fight suggested to Gane was a matchup with Francis Ngannou. But, with both men having cut their teeth in the Paris-based MMA Factory gym under the tutelage of coach Fernand Lopez, Gane said he would only really want that matchup if a title was on the line.
“I think if the UFC does this, please do this for the belt. That’s it,” he said. “Because, you understand, we’re from the same gym, the same coach.”