Interim heavyweight champion Ciryl Gane will look to unify the 265-pound titles when he collides with division kingpin Francis Ngannou in the upcoming UFC 270 pay-per-view (PPV) main event, scheduled for Sat., Jan. 22, 2022 inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The talk in front of every Ngannou fight is the power “The Predator” brings to the cage, responsible for five straight knockouts, including his second-round destruction of former champion Stipe Miocic in the UFC 260 headliner last March in “Sin City.”
“This is not scaring me,” Gane told Submission Radio. “You see with Derrick Lewis, he had big knockout power too. Derrick Lewis is a beast too. But it was not a problem. When you look at the fight, I stayed inside like that with his punches. It was not a problem. A heavyweight like me, I can punch too like that with a big transfer. But no, it’s not a problem for me. This is really not scaring me.”
Ngannou (16-3) lost a staring contest to Lewis at UFC 226.
Gane (10-0) went on to outclass “The Black Beast” en route to a third-round technical knockout at UFC 265 last August. “Bon Gamin” has risen through the heavyweight ranks unopposed, having disposed of top contenders like Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Alexander Volkov along the way.
“I’m really confident in myself,” Gane continued. “When I started in Muay Thai too I was like that, because every fight in my career, in front of me, it was a man more experienced than me. I’ve got the fight IQ, and maybe my footwork too. He is an athlete too, he has good speed. He has good cardio too. Maybe not exactly [more] than me, because maybe he’s heavier than me or something like that, but he’s a good athlete.”
Gane is currently a +100 underdog.