At UFC 310 this weekend, another heavyweight could join the conversation that has been dominated by the division’s two titleholders in Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall. Whichever man gets the win, Ciryl Gane or Alexander Volkov will prove that they’re the next in line for a title shot even if the future of the division remains unclear right now.
Since losing to Aspinall in 2022, Volkov has put together a very strong run with four consecutive wins. Gane, on the other hand, hasn’t fought since his victory over Serghei Spivac in Paris last year which saw him bounce back from his loss to Jones at UFC 285.
The former interim champion has received some criticism since then over not wanting to pursue a fight with Aspinall and then turning down the interim title fight for UFC 304 in July due to a commitment he had made to filming a TV show for Netflix which has since released. Chael Sonnen believes that with these factors being considered, he doesn’t understand why “Bon Gamin” is a clear favorite according to the oddsmakers.
“Ciryl is a very heavy favorite. I, for the life of me, do not know why.
“I don’t mean to be negative towards Ciryl but I will share with you, nobody gets better at this sport by not doing it and Ciryl passed up on very big opportunities to go and film a movie that nobody’s ever heard of and most likely will never see but you can’t ever get around that. Every actor wants to be an athlete and every athlete wants to be an actor. There’s no way to ever work that out. So now Ciryl’s going to come in against largely a mere image of himself.”
Many would point to Gane being a big favorite due to the way that their first meeting played out. In June of 2021, the French fighter dominated against Volkov and won all five rounds on multiple scorecards to earn his sixth consecutive win inside the Octagon.
Sonnen, however, believes that Volkov has never looked better than he did last time out against Sergei Pavlovich in June in a fight that he believes the Russian coasted through.
“Volkov went out and didn’t even take him serious. Volkov’s trainer in between rounds brought him water and a comb. He combed his hair in between rounds, I mean he was doing marketing and he was doing a spoof and he was performing cuz he was so unimpressed by your great blonde hope.”