A potential top contender at the Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight division may emerge at night’s end.
Via the UFC on Thursday, its comeback to Paris on Sept. 2 has been made official. There is currently one fight scheduled for this UFC Fight Night card's lineup, which was just announced between Ciryl Gane (11-2) and Sergey Spivak (16-3). The two heavyweights will battle it out for upwards of five rounds in front of fans at the Accor Arena. This will be the second jaunt for the UFC to France, as it first made the trip with a Gane-featured show on September 2022.
In March, Gane vied for the newly vacated heavyweight throne, and he faced off against former light heavyweight king Jon Jones. After about two minutes, Jones throttled Gane with a guillotine choke to earn pound-for-pound distinction while handing Gane his first pro stoppage loss. The defeat for Gane ended the momentum he gained from his first Parisian UFC trip last September, as he battered the Aussie for three rounds before forcing the stoppage. Other than Jones and Francis Ngannou for the unified belt in the beginning of 2022, Gane has passed every test he has encountered.
Moldova’s Spivak has cobbled together a growingly impressive resume of opponents, with the lion’s share of his wins coming inside the distance. Currently tying his UFC record of three wins in a row, Spivak’s 2022 campaign went swimmingly with knockouts of Greg Hardy and Augusto Sakai. A quick submission of Derrick Lewis in February thrust him towards the top of the heavyweight rankings board. In his last seven appearances, “The Polar Bear” has only come up short against Tom Aspinall, losing by knockout in late 2021.
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