Ciryl Gane is finished arguing about where his fingers go.
The UFC heavyweight champion, who makes his first title defense against Josh Hokit in the UFC 334 main event this weekend, told RMC Sports Combat that the fouling accusations trailing him are frustration from people who can’t stomach how he wins. “I’m not here to try and convince anyone,” Gane said.
He has a lot of noise to ignore. Gane’s reign started under a cloud. His eye pokes injured Tom Aspinall at UFC 321 badly enough that Gane went on to fight for an interim title, won it, and was then promoted to full champion while Aspinall’s eye problems lingered. Alex Pereira has piled on since, repeatedly calling out Gane for illegal shots to the back of the head in their interim title fight. Fans have followed Pereira’s lead and hammered Gane online.
Gane’s read on all of it? “I think it’s a kind of frustration, or in any case, a struggle with acceptance that’s hard to deal with,” he said.
He then voiced his imagined critics, the tough guys who’ve been fighting since they were kids and can’t figure out how the cheerful newcomer keeps beating them. Their solution, in Gane’s telling: “I’m going to drag his name through the mud.” He laughed off the idea that fouls are part of the plan, saying that if you watch him train, “you don’t see strategies like eye-gouging.”
Gane said he focuses on his training and his fights, tries to respect opponents from the first bell to the last, and avoids saying anything out of line. He framed winning as a form of respect. “And actually, by beating them, I’m respecting them,” he said, before calling the whole situation a shame and adding that there’s no need for people to talk about him on the web.
Hokit will talk about him plenty. The challenger has climbed the heavyweight ranks fast, helped in part by pro-wrestling theatrics and a steady stream of trash talk. Gane isn’t rattled.
“He does it to destabilize certain fighters who are susceptible to being destabilized. I don’t think I am,” Gane said, crediting work with his mental coach. He even admitted Hokit gets a chuckle out of him sometimes, saying the challenger “makes me laugh a little when he doesn’t cross the line or insult too much.”
Quick take: Gane’s probably right that nobody drills eye pokes on the pads, and it doesn’t matter one bit. This is what you get when a heavyweight title runs through an injury, an interim belt and a promotion, which is about the least satisfying path to a championship the UFC offers. Talking won’t fix it. A clean win over a trash-talking wrestler with his fingers curled into a fist will do more than any interview, and Hokit is going to be yelling about eye pokes whether Gane gives him a reason or not.
