To some degree, all of us MMA fans can turn off our brains and just enjoy a fight for what it is. We'll turn on Dana White's Contender Series and watch two fighters we've never heard of who have a combined 3 professional fights and watch them beat the hell out of each other for entertainment and sleep soundly at night. Unless you've been watching since the dark ages, which some of you out there have been, you probably don't need the most compelling storyline to sell a fight for you. Put a belt on the line or a just risk someone's spot in the rankings and that's usually good enough for us, even if we have a pretty good idea of who is going to win. However, when a fight does have actual stakes with a storyline that is so compelling it almost doesn't seem real at times and that's when you'll see even the long time hardcore fans get really excited. That's what we have staring us in the face for Saturday night. Francis Ngannou vs Ciryl Gane fighting to unify the heavyweight title has everything a fight fan could realistically ask for. The stakes surrounding the title are obvious, I don't think I need to explain that. The story and the bad blood really only adds to things. By now, you've probably heard about how Gane and Ngannou were briefly training partners earlier in their careers. This is the same story that was played out for Burns vs Usman last year, so it's not entirely unique, but doesn't happen that often either. However, unlike the Usman and Burns situation, there is some bad blood between the camps. Francis Ngannou has since left that camp that is coached by Fernand Lopez, who still coaches Ciryl Gane to this day, and headed to Vegas to be coached by Eric Nicksick instead. Since that move, we've seen Francis rise to the top of the heavyweight division and Gane has simultaneously risen to the status of interim champion and number one contender. Oddly enough, it doesn't seem like there is much heat between the former training partners. Rather, the heat is between Francis and his former coach, Fernand Lopez. I don't have enough time to go over everything that's been said or this would end up being an entire novel, but a quick google search will show you that these two haven't gotten over the split. Things have quieted down between them during fight week as they both lock in on their own strategies and keys to success, but I expect we'll being hearing a lot of the quotes from them during the broadcast. If all of that wasn't enough, there is another entire layer to this fight that won't be mentioned during the broadcast I presume and that is Francis Ngannou's contract situation. As with any contract situation in professional sports, it is a lot more complicated than most regular people can understand, which is why so many lawyers have to be involved. The crux of the issue is that Francis Ngannou believes he is out-performing his current contract and wants to redo it for more money, pretty simple and standard stuff as far as sports are concerned. The problem is that MMA contracts are infinitely more complicated than contracts in other sports due to the structure of MMA and how the scheduling works. In other sports, athletes will have a contract that is for a certain number of seasons and once all of those seasons run out, then they're a free agent. Obviously, things can be more complicated than that with no trade clauses and salary structure, but at their most basic level, it ties the athlete to their team for a certain number of seasons. In MMA, there is no "season", unless we're talking about PFL, but I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole at the moment. This leads to MMA contracts being multilayered. In general, a fighter's contract will be for a certain amount of time, say 40 months, and a certain number of fights, usually 4, 6, or 8. This sounds pretty simple, but there's a lot of extra clauses in them that make it more difficult. For example, when someone in the NFL is about to become a free agent, they may be extra cautious and sit out do to injuries that they may have played through at other times in their career or can talk with the team and potentially agree to just sit out the last game of the season if the team has nothing to play for and at the end of the season, their contract is over and they are free to sign anywhere. That doesn't happen in MMA. When Francis Ngannou wants a new deal, he realistically can't just sit out until his deal expires and then negotiate a new one. There are a lot of things that will allow the UFC to add extensions to his contract, including if Francis (or any fighter) is declining fights. If a fighter just wants to leave, the UFC can offer them fights that they know the fighter won't accept and by terms of the contract, will be able to add time, usually in increments of 6 months. This essentially forces the fighter to meet the fight limit on their contract and fight out all remaining fights because it is almost impossible for them to reach the time limit due to policies like this. Now, it isn't all bad because that usually does come with some sort of compromise in pay, but, still. Additionally, there is a champions clause in most UFC contracts. This means that when a fighter wins the title in the last fight of their contract, there is automatically more term added to their contract in the form of 3 fights or 1 calendar year, whichever is shorter. This will often come with what's called "pay per view points" which just means the fighter is compensated based on how many pay per views that fight sells. If you don't fully understand all of the details of what I just said, don't worry, they're not imperative to understanding the fight or the rest of this post. However, what you need to take away from all of that is that if the UFC wants to keep a fighter, especially a champion, it is extremely difficult for them to actually reach the point of free agency. That's why this is so huge when Francis can actually reach that mark at the end of this year. His team believes that win or lose on Saturday, Francis will be a free agent at the end of 2022. He has said that unless he gets a new contract, this will be his last fight and he will wait until the end of the year when his contract expires. This adds huge intrigue to this fight for so many people. Francis has essentially gone all in on this fight. If he wins, he holds all of the power. There's no way the UFC can let him walk away from the company as the reigning heavyweight champion because whoever takes over for him as champion won't see as legitimate. However, the alternative is just as damaging for Francis. If he loses, his intrigue would likely go way down. Sure, he would have plenty of interest from other MMA promotions, but I don't believe he would get a deal that is much of an upgrade over his current one if at all outside of the UFC. Without the UFC title, a potential boxing match with Tyson Fury doesn't carry nearly as much weight as it would if he was the active champion. This is already long as hell, so I won't get into the exact demands from Francis, but just know that he has so much riding on the outcome of Saturday's main event. A win would be monumental for his career and who knows how far he could go. A loss leaves him with a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. How both Francis and the UFC approach this negotiations over the next year will all start with what we see on Saturday.
That was just the intro and its as long as one of my shorter posts. I didn't even get to the breakdown yet so, strap in, I guess. With so much talk about Francis Ngannou in the latter half of the intro, we may as well start with him. Francis Ngannou defeated consensus greatest heavyweight in UFC history, Stipe Miocic, for the undisputed championship in his last fight. Ngannou had challenged Miocic for the belt back in 2018, but it was clear in that fight that Ngannou was not quite ready for that level of fighter just yet. Miocic controlled Ngannou on the ground for much of the fight after Francis became extremely fatigued by throwing wild strikes early in an attempt to get the early finish that he likely needed. Ngannou rebounded by winning 4 fights in a row, all by way of first round knockout. Those wins came over Curtis Blaydes, Cain Velasquez, Junior Dos Santos, and Jairzinho Rozenstruik. He's now won 5 in a row of course after collecting that list win via second round knockout over Miocic. In terms of skills, Francis is known for his massive power. He's probably the biggest power puncher in the UFC right now and maybe of all time. While Francis shows power in all of his strikes, he primarily relies on his hands. He mixes in some kicks at times, but unless he's really been working on it since the Stipe fight, I wouldn't anticipate seeing a lot of kicks from Ngannou. Francis is a guy that I think a lot of fans and potential opponents thought they had figured out. That was until he showed significant improvements against Stipe. The first was the clear steps forward he made in the wrestling and grappling. Ngannou was dominated by Stipe's wrestling in their first fight, but the second time around, he was able to stuff all of the takedowns and actually get one of his own and attempted a second one. This indicates not only an improvement, but a confidence in it from Francis. He felt good enough and comfortable enough to take the fight to the ground offensively. If Francis is going to be willing and able to take Ciryl Gane to the ground and use his power in a ground and pound situation, that will be an absolute game changer. I think his newfound confidence in his grappling led to Francis feeling a lot more relaxed on the feet. In the past, it felt at times that Francis was trying to get the finish as fast as possible because he knew if he gave someone the opportunity, they were going to take him down and there was nothing he would be able to do to stop them or get back up. Being confident in his defensive wrestling has introduced us to "Patient Francis" which comes from the same nicknaming strategy as "Blonde Brunson". The version of Francis we saw on the feet against Stipe was even scarier than before. He felt no need to rush and just waited for his opportunity and opening to land the shots he wants to. This is really all he needs to do because one clean punch is more than enough to end the fight. Of course, Francis isn't without weakness and there's still one glaring one. It's virtually impossible for someone as large and muscular as Francis Ngannou to have a great cardio situation. The longer this fight goes, the more it benefits Ciryl Gane. Even though he is much improved, I still wouldn't favor Francis on the ground either. Gane has a much more diverse and natural looking submission game that I don't think Ngannou really wants to deal with. Finally, we really don't know much about Ngannou's chin. His fights typically don't last long, so he doesn't have much of a chance to even take damage, but it's just a bit of an unknown. If Gane can land a couple big shots, we don't know how Ngannou will react. I'm not saying he can't take a punch or will wilt under pressure, just that its a situation we haven't had to see him in yet. Francis Ngannou is the much more known commodity, yet I feel like there's still so much we don't know about him due to his relatively short time training.
Ciryl Gane on the other hand isn't as known by the more casual community and that's due in large part to him only having 10 career fights. He also isn't very loud and boisterous, which is a technique more and more fighters are using to get fans behind them before they even enter the rankings or sometimes even enter the UFC. Gane is 7-0 in his time in the UFC with his best wins coming over Alexander Volkov, Jairzinho Rozenstruik, Junior Dos Santos, and Derrick Lewis, which was for the interim title. Gane's experience in MMA is extremely limited, but he makes up for it with his natural athleticism. His style is that of a much smaller fighter. Despite being an extremely large man, he doesn't have the huge power that you typically see from most heavyweights. He instead relies on his speed and quickness to land extended combinations and then exit the pocket before his opponent can land their shots. Gane's movement is also extremely difficult for his opponents to adjust to because there's really no one else in the division that can do it like him. If Gane wasn't fighting, he would almost assuredly be a professional athlete in something else. Human beings simply don't offer this combination of skills very often. The size, speed, and power combined with the short distance quickness is often just too much for his opponents to deal with. They simply don't know what to do because they don't have the physical skills to answer back. For someone as new to MMA as Gane is, his technical skills are also really impressive. His striking techniques are some of the best in the entire division already. Simply put, there's really nothing we've seen Ciryl Gane try to do inside the octagon and fail at. There's a few things that we really haven't see him do all that often. His wrestling is the mains source of these questions. His takedown game isn't super polished, but he's such a good kick boxer that him even attempting a takedown is enough for him to land it sometimes just because opponents really weren't expecting it. He's never been taken down either, but he hasn't really faced anyone who main game plan was to try and get him down. Given what we've seen, its probably better for me to assume that he can do those things because he does everything else well. I don't anticipate this fight having a lot of wrestling exchanges in the first place, so I'm not going to spend any more time on it. The only really weaknesses for Gane are due to his lack of experience. This will still only be his 11th professional fight and it will be on a massive scale. We've seen so many times in the past that certain fighters aren't able to take the skills they display in the gym and have them translate into a real fight due to any number of psychological factors. Is it possible that this stage just gets to Ciryl Gane? Sure, anything is possible. Of course, there is the added element of them training together. Even if it was just sparring, someone got the better of the other and they both know it. Whoever got the upper hand in that training will likely have an extra boost of confidence. Another big question that Gane will have to answer is how he fights if things don't go his way early. Ciryl Gane hasn't faced a ton of resistance in his MMA career and I expect that to change. He'll have to deal with that adversity and come out on the other side of it in order to find the win. I believe he can do it, but it's a difficult thing to deal with when it's a situation that he's never been in before. These skills are what makes this fight so hard to pick and why so many really smart people are backing Gane.
There are a few keys to this fight and the first one is the same thing I say every time. Whoever can dictate the pace of this fight will likely find themselves on the winning end. This time though, I think it can be a little more complicated than before. Because of his ability to move his feet and his cardio advantage, I don't think Gane has to move forward in order to dictate the pace, which isn't typical. His quickness advantage gives him the ability to move backwards, hit Francis, then slide out of the way if Francis is unable to cut him off. If you need an example, think about Sean O'Malley vs Kris Moutinho. Moutinho was the one coming forward, but O'Malley was still the one dictating the pace of the actual exchanges. I think Gane could move backwards and still dictate the exchanges, at least for stretches. He's still a heavyweight, so I don't think he can be on his heels the whole 25 minutes and have his cardio hold up like Sean O'Malley did or like Cory Sandhagen did against TJ Dillashaw. Gane will have to come forward sometimes, which he has to do cautiously. If he mindlessly comes forward, he could get caught and find himself in a bad spot. Francis, I believe, is much more simple. I think Francis needs to go forward or, at the very least, hold his ground for a majority of the contest. Francis is at his best when he's moving forward, so that obviously gives him the best chance to win. Additionally, if Francis is moving backwards, that will really take a toll on his cardio. I don't think he can afford to have that happen. He and/or his coaches saw what happened to Derrick Lewis when he didn't go forward. To put it simply, the pace matters so much because it will dictate how quickly Francis will gas. To branch off of this, a second key is whether or not we get patient Francis. Francis still has and always will have the option to go completely nuclear, like he did against Rozenstruik. He can enter the pocket and swing until Gane's back hits the cage and then land the big one. I think the best bet for Francis is to actually be slightly more aggressive than he was against Stipe. Gane has the better kicking game and if Francis can crowd him, that will limit those kicks. At range, the striking exchanges can be more diverse, which will always favor Gane. Everything I'm saying basically comes down to the fact that the margin for error in this is so low for everyone involved. Gane has the skills, but he has to be so careful that he doesn't get hit. Francis has the power, but he has to be so careful that he doesn't over extend himself early and end up gassing out. One final key, that I don't have the answer to, is if someone decides to and successfully mixes in grappling. If one of them can land an early takedown, this would completely flip everything on it's head. If Gane lands one early, that will take a lot of Ngannou's energy to get back up or survive the rest of the round. If Ngannou can land the takedown, that is a really bad spot to be in. I can't imagine having to deal with the ground and pound of Francis Ngannou regardless of how technically sound it is or isn't. This fight all feels so precarious. One wrong move either way and this fight can really go sideways for either one of them.
What do you guys think? Did the UFC promote this fight properly? Who do you like to get the win? Will Ngannou's power come out on top? Or will Gane's quickness be too much? What are your keys to the fight? Leave any and all thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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