Ciryl Gane Says He’s Angry at Himself After Quick Defeat at UFC 285

Ciryl Gane didn’t give Jon Jones much of a test in his heavyweight debut, and for that, the Frenchman is upset with himself.

After a brief period on the feet, “Bon Gamin” was taken down and submitted with a guillotine choke 2:04 into Round 1 of the UFC 285 headliner at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. While Gane’s wrestling was expected to be his weakest area, few anticipated the fight ending that quickly. That included Gane, whose emotions in the aftermath included both disappointment and anger.

“Disappointed, of course. But the biggest feeling is angry about myself. Really angry,” Gane said at the UFC 285 post-fight press conference. “Because yes, we accepted this fight, 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 [didn’t show] during the fight. So I’m really angry.”

Saturday marked the second time that Gane came up short in a bid to claim the undisputed heavyweight crown. After capturing interim heavyweight gold with a TKO of Derrick Lewis at UFC 265, he dropped a five-round verdict to Francis Ngannou in a championship unification bout at UFC 270. The MMA Factory product says that Saturday’s loss to Jones was far more disappointing.

“This is a real loss,” Gane said. “This is the first real loss I have. When I think about the loss against Francis, it was not a big loss for me. I learned, but it was not too big. But this one is so painful. This one is a real loss. Now this is the past. I must go forward to see the future. I’m going to go straight back to the gym.”

Gane is relatively young in MMA after making his professional debut in 2018. He quickly rose to prominence in the UFC during a six-fight winning streak that featured triumphs over the likes of Junior dos Santos, Jairzinho Rozenstruik, Alexander Volkov and Lewis. However, his wrestling has been badly exposed in the setbacks to Jones and Ngannou.

“The first thing is I’m going to go back straight to the gym and I’m going to work on my ground game,” Gane added. “Yes, he’s a really high-level wrestler in the ground game, but we worked a lot, but I don’t have good reflexes. So I’m really angry at myself, so yeah, I’m going to work on it.”