It seems like only yesterday
Ciryl Gane
was the hottest prospect at heavyweight and seemed destined for the
title. Then he ran into
Francis
Ngannou who showed off his wrestling chops late in the fight to
secure the win. Another shot saw him massacred in less than a round
by
Jon
Jones. This weekend, Gane gets to test his grappling prowess
again and take on
Sergey
Spivak to prove to his home country of France that he’s
improved as a fighter at
UFC Fight Night 226.
Today’s edition of Beforemath will dive into both Gane and Spivak
as we attempt to answer several questions about both. Is Gane a
threat at heavyweight any longer and has he developed basic
anti-grappling techniques? Has Spivak learned from his loss to
Tom
Aspinall and worked out how to deal with an elusive, mobile
opponent?
Spivak: Learn from Your Mistakes
Spivak has been on a tear since losing to
Marcin
Tybura in 2020. Now ranked seventh, Spivak has gone 6-1 with
his lone loss to Aspinall and has won three straight since then.
The key to his success has been in the clinch and he will look to
do that again at “UFC Paris.”
While Gane is tricky, he’s not as astute as Aspinall in the clinch
which gives “Polar Bear” a middle ground to work with. He will need
to be able to get to the clinch and show that a slippery opponent
isn’t the key to beating him any longer. So how does the Polar Bear
Team talent do that? How does Spivak get to the ground despite
having a large power disadvantage in many of his fights? If Gane is
lazy with his strikes, which is admittedly asking for a lot, Spivak
has shown the ability to get the fight to the ground on his terms.
Spivak will have to find his own ways to get in on Gane
proactively.