Francis
Ngannou still owns bragging rights over Ciryl Gane
thanks to his victory over the Frenchman at UFC 270 in January.
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With that in mind, the reigning heavyweight champion isn’t going
over the top with his praise of Gane following his third-round
knockout victory over Tai Tuivasa
in the
UFC Fight Night 209 headliner in Paris on Saturday. “Bon Gamin”
has been victorious in eight of nine promotional appearances, with
his lone defeat coming via unanimous decision against Ngannou.
“I know he’s a great fighter,” Ngannou said on the ESPN+ post-fight
show. “It’s hard to respond to that question for the guy that I
beat – if I’m impressed with him. He’s here for a reason. I fought
him for a reason because he was probably the No. 1 contender. Yes,
he’s good, but I’m the champ. Yeah, so it’s really hard to be
impressed.”
Gane had to survive some adversity to emerge victorious against
Tuivasa. The heavy-handed Aussie became the first person to land a
knockdown against Gane when he floored his adversary with a big
right hand in the second round. Gane recovered and ultimately put
Tuivasa away in the third round in what could be a star-making
performance for the MMA Factory representative. Ngannou, who was
present cageside, is well aware of Gane’s strengths.
“That fight was very electric, though,” Ngannou said. “There were
good actions in the fight. At some point, you see the fight was
half-half and then it switched back to Ciryl’s side, which is what
I thought. As far as distance, he’s good at controlling that and he
was able to apply that in the fight tonight. You can see the body
[shots], that’s what got him the victory. It was just like
strategic, technical type of fight.”
Ngannou is still in the process of recovering from knee surgery,
which he underwent following his win over Gane. He’s confident in
his progress, but it’s likely that he won’t be able to return to
action until 2023 at the earliest.
“I don’t have any timeline or exact timeline for the return,” he
said. “I’m going to see the doctor one week from now. I’m following
up with the doctor to see how it’s going. But it’s going pretty
good. But you have to give it some time. It’s not like it’s going
to be great. It’s been five months.”