At the first-ever UFC event in France Cyril Gane put up a masterful performance. Gane knocked out Tai Tuivasa.
UFC 285 served up a completely different outcome for the French heavyweight. Gane (12-2) lost the bout for the title via a first round submission against Jon Jones.
Jon Jones is known for eye-poking opponents to gain an advantage.
But to a far less known degree, Cyril Gane is also guilty of using fouls to his own advantage. Gane even landed a groin shot in the first ten seconds against Jones before getting submitted seconds later.
While Gane presents as a nice guy and is famously amicable prior to events his behavior inside the cage is far more questionable.
A compilation of Gane’s fouls went viral overnight. It features the French kickboxer committing an assortment of fouls over the course of his short MMA career.
The very first part of the compilation shows Gane, landing elbows to the back of the head as the referee steps in. Gane also landed a knee to the head of a grounded opponent with yet another referee reluctant to step in and call the foul. His opponent even pointed and publicly complained about it as Gane kept on hurling strikes his way.
Gane’s also known to land a kick or two to the groin. Jon Jones certainly wasn’t his first. Though to be fair this can sometimes happen just because of the stance mixed martial artists choose against one another.
In that very same outing Gane also went for an obvious eye poke.
Former UFC heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos was the recepient of one of the biggest fouls from Gane with powerful elbows landing to the back of his head. Santos addressed the issue afterwards telling interviewers:
“People saying I turned my head, to me, is absurd. I already was sideways, he was kind of holding me in that position for about 10 seconds, so when he threw the elbow—I don’t think it was intentional, he didn’t mean to land the elbow to the back of my head, I don’t think that, but it doesn’t make it legal. “Oh, I turned my head and whatever.” That doesn’t make the strike not illegal.”
“I didn’t turn my head, I was in that position for a few seconds already, enough time for him to know that that type of attack would obviously hit the back of the head. I know an athlete probably is very excited in that moment and kind of doesn’t reflect too much about it, but illegal strikes are clear. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many people that maybe doesn’t have access to the media to speak, [it’s illegal], but those specialists are saying it wasn’t, that it was legal because I turned.”
Gane would go on to treat Tai Tuivasa similarly
The 32-year-old will be eyeing a comeback in his next octagon appearance. And with the UFC reportedly set to return to Paris in September this year, it’s hard to picture a main event that doesn’t feature Cyril Gane.
According to confirmed reports from Al Zulino, UFC has shifted its return to Paris to 2nd of September.
The UFC has yet to officially confirm these reports. UFC Paris makes sense also because this is the location of their official apparel sponsor Venum. MMA was banned in France up until recently so it’s interesting to see UFC return for their second ever event in France.