Ciryl Gane made his professional mixed martial arts debut on Aug. 2, 2018, a first-round win over a little-known opponent on a local show in Montreal. In less than three years, he’s become one of the world’s elite heavyweights, a rise that is one of the most rapid and stunning in the sport’s history.
Gane emerged onto the UFC scene fully formed as one of the most skilled, athletic and cultured strikers the heavyweight division has ever seen. At every turn, he’s been nothing short of brilliant. But not even Gane could have foreseen what happened over the past few days: over the course of 72 hours, he went from promising rising star, to top-flight contender, to potential UFC champion and one of the loci of a controversy that’s been bubbling over throughout the sport for months.
Fighters have been sorely underpaid throughout the history of the UFC, a disparity that has only become more stark over time with the advent of exclusive apparel contracts and other fighter-unfriendly developments. While the UFC makes record revenues and president Dana White boasts about betting seven figures on boxing matches, many of the UFC’s rank-and-file fighters have to hold down day jobs to pay the bills.
The share of UFC revenue that goes to the fighters themselves is commonly estimated at around 18-20 percent – other major sports leagues, which have collective bargaining agreements with the athletes, are usually close to an even split. The UFC doesn’t make things better with its bullheaded, low-balling negotiation tactics when putting together fights, led by White and exec Hunter Campbell – an unseen force that longtime MMA reporter Ariel Helwani shed some light on this week. (That Twitter thread should be required reading for anyone interested in the business of the UFC.)
Most UFC fans, reporters and onlookers scoff at the idea that there will ever be a fighters’ union, or any type of solidarity in a sport where the participants are trying to commit violence on one another. But it certainly feels like we’re reaching a critical point. Something is broken in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Francis Ngannou won the UFC heavyweight championship in March, knocking out the legendary Stipe Miocic in the second round. By any way you look at it, Ngannou has the chance to be a beloved worldwide sports star. He’s a warm, humble personality. He has the kind of backstory they write movies about. He’s a proud native of Cameroon who one could see opening up the entire continent of Africa to mixed martial arts. He’s one of the most special talents the heavyweight division has ever seen. And he brings the excitement every time he fights – he may be the single hardest puncher that has ever set foot in an MMA arena.
When Ngannou won the title, all eyes turned towards a fight between him and Jon Jones, perhaps the greatest mixed martial artist of all time, the longtime light heavyweight champ moving up in weight after years of flirting with the idea of a heavyweight run. But the Ngannou-Jones fight – which would undoubtedly make the UFC an enormous amount of money – hit a snag early, as the UFC refused to meet Jones’ price.
Jones was very outspoken about the negotiations during the dispute, meaning that media coverage was framed around issues between the UFC and Jones’ camp. And despite how big the Ngannou-Jones fight could have been, the UFC – in the ultimate cut off your nose to spite your face move – decided to move on, attempting to book Ngannou and top contender Derrick Lewis.
If Jones wasn’t around, Lewis would be a perfectly reasonable first defense. Lewis is a former title challenger with four straight wins, huge punching power, and a win over Ngannou in 2018. For a time, the idea that the Ngannou-Lewis rematch was going to be on the ledger for August or September was just assumed. In recent weeks, rumors had started to swirl that there were some disagreements in the negotiations, but we went into Saturday’s UFC show – headlined by Gane’s bout with fellow top-five contender Alexander Volkov – assuming that the only thing at stake was positioning for a future opportunity somewhere down the line.
Gane was magnificent in the biggest fight of his career, taking hold of the contest’s distance and pace and forcing the highly dangerous Volkov to fight his fight for 25 minutes. Volkov provided the stiffest challenge Gane has ever faced to date, but the Frenchman was once again masterful in his striking technique. He prevailed by unanimous decision in an entertaining, high-level stand-up battle, leaving zero doubt that he was one of the top heavyweights in the world.
Two days later, a bombshell dropped. Ostensibly after disagreements about when Ngannou would be ready to fight Lewis, news broke that the UFC was setting up an interim heavyweight title fight between Lewis and Gane in August. That’s almost unheard of in this situation: with a healthy champion who had won the belt only three months before. It was a clear message to the entire UFC roster: you are expendable, even if you’re a champion. It took Ngannou himself by shock.
This isn’t the UFC trying to bully the rank-and-file fighters that make up the undercard on an ESPN+ show. This is the UFC trying to bully one of its biggest stars, a world champion. It’s outrageous, a example of how fucked-up and bush-league an organization the UFC is that’s so clear that it’s almost blinding. And much for the worse, Ciryl Gane is the beneficiary.
Gane has done nothing wrong since he started his MMA career. He’s won, over and over, in impressive fashion every time. He’s reached the top of the rankings based solely off the strength of his merit. This weekend, he won the biggest fight of his career, was offered something much bigger, and he took it. It’s hard to blame him for that.
But it’s also a perfect example of how the UFC pits its fighters against one another, ensuring no solidarity can be achieved. The message to Ngannou is clear: we can screw you over and we’ll always find another guy to jump at the chance to take your spot. Until someone like Ciryl Gane is willing to turn this kind of opportunity down to instead work for something more fair for everyone else, no progress will ever be achieved.
So Ciryl Gane will fight for an interim heavyweight championship in August, and he will be favored to win. If he does, he’ll have to have that fear in his mind: if they can screw Francis Ngannou, they won’t hesitate to screw Ciryl Gane too.
The Big Fight 