Jon Jones returned to the octagon after a three-year hiatus and took the UFC heavyweight title by storm at UFC 285 in Las Vegas, NV on Saturday night.
The match saw Jones facing off against French heavyweight Ciryl Gane, who was once an interim heavyweight champion. Although Gane had the movement and skills to keep big men guessing, Jones proved to be too much for him. In the end, Jones answered all questions and silenced all doubters in mere minutes by submitting Gane with a deep guillotine choke.
Gane was angry at his performance afterwards.
“Disappointed, of course,” Gane said.
“But the biggest feeling is angry about myself.”
“It was not short-notice, but the time was not too long, but we worked a lot, we spent a lot of time. We trained with my sparring partners, so I’m really angry about myself because I spent a lot of time with my partners, my coaches, my family, and it [wasn’t reflected].”
Some fans even went so far to say they’ll never endorse a man coached by Fernand Lopez/ Baki Chamsoudinov duo. And they might have a point. If you think about it, Francis Ngannou only overcame the issues in his wrestling after choosing to move to Xtreme Couture and train under Eric Nicksick. This was a pivotal move in Ngannou’s career.
Gane’s coach previously said he would be going straight to Dagestan in fall out from getting outwrestled by Ngannou at UFC 270.
“I already made two phone calls in Dagestan and in Chechnya, two heavyweights are on their way. They have long arms as those of Francis and Jon Jones.” Lopez said.
Sadly that didn’t get Gane anywhere and he was finished in just over a minute.
Khabib Nurmagomedov heard about it, and of course saw UFC 285. He extended an invite to Dagestan to Gane, to see how it’s actually done.