Coach: Ciryl Gane plenty impressive even if not entertaining, but will make proper adjustments

Fernand Lopez understands the criticism of Ciryl Gane following his latest win, but the MMA Factory Paris head coach believes there were still plenty of positives to take away from his pupil’s first UFC headliner.

“I need to admit that the people didn’t enjoy the show,” Lopez told MMA Junkie. “To have a show, to tango, you need two people to tango. This side of things, we didn’t have competitive opposition, so clearly this fight wasn’t that entertaining, to be honest with you. But I have a feeling that people are way, way too critical for this fight because there’s a few things that you can look to this fight and that you can be happy to have this young man in the division.”

Gane (8-0 MMA, 5-0 UFC) headlined this past weekend’s UFC Fight Night 186 in Las Vegas, where he shut out vaunted striker Jairzinho Rozenstruik over the course of five rounds, walking away with a 50-45 win across the board. However, UFC president Dana White was somewhat critical afterward, telling Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole that, “He won, but let’s leave it at that. He won.”

Lopez said he won’t attempt to change that narrative but believes the discerning eye will certainly have picked up several positive building blocks that Gane can use in the future.

“That was clearly the opportunity to show who he is, but there are two ways to show who you are,” Lopez said. “You can just go there and score a submission right away, 10 seconds and then win the fight. You can go in there and just knock the guy out, 10 seconds, and go with that, and people still don’t know what you are capable to do, right? In my way, there’s a lot of answers we had on Ciryl Gane this weekend.

“We can now say that Ciryl Gane – I knew that he could fight. He can have the five rounds, because I knew how we prepared, but people didn’t know that. I know he can handle very dangerous knockout power men without rushing, without being in a rush to finish him. He did manage that.”

In truth, Gane’s demeanor was eerily calm in the contest, and while it’s certainly not a fight fans will be clamoring to replay on UFC Fight Pass anytime soon, Lopez said “Bon Gamin” proved quite a lot in the win, especially considering his incredibly limited background in the sport. Already in the top-10 of the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie heavyweight rankings, it’s incredible to consider Gane had just 14 combined kickboxing and muay Thai fights and no amateur MMA experience before turning pro in August 2018.

“When you put that in perspective, knowing that this guy just arrived in the MMA game, never fought in amateur, has only eight fights – most of the fighters in the UFC when they were on the level of eight fights were just playing local, regional events,” Lopez said. “And we have this kid in UFC, fighting the No. 3 in the weight division. Man, I think Ciryl Gane is bringing things that the heavyweights never seen before.

“After the fourth round, Ciryl asked me, ‘How are we looking?’ I said, ‘We’re winning all the rounds, but I need you to finish this fight. I need you to move forward and finish this fight. And the gameplan finally to finish this fight was at some point, if we cannot knock Rozenstruik down, he would have gone for the takedown and then submit him. One of the things that pushed Ciryl Gane to release the pressure on the takedown was the elbow. We have seen people collapsing on the double leg with the side elbow in the head, and Rozenstruik did hit two times on the head at some point, and so the fight wasn’t that easy, and my point of view is that we need to back on the ball, train again with Ciryl Gane, and I will be helping him to try and finish people even when they are not committed, when they are not engaging in the fight – so we need to learn how to finish someone who is not giving you the opportunity to finish him.

And so, Lopez said he and Gane are hoping for a quick turnaround. The French heavyweight suffered no real damage in the fight, and so he’s hoping to get another matchup right away. The names don’t really matter, Lopez said, but the result does. He and Gane know that lackluster decisions – even dominant ones – aren’t enough to complete the mission they’re on.

“I just want people to give him a little time,” Lopez said. “I’m not blaming anyone, including Dana White. Dana White, in my little bit of dimension as a promoter in Ares, I would have been like Dana White, saying that, ‘OK, for my odds and everything, we were looking that these big dudes would kill each other and have a KO, and you guys are going to a split decision? You’re killing my odds.’ So I literally understand Dana White. I don’t blame him. It is Dana White, and I’m such a big fan of this dude. This man has done so much, and so I understand the point of view. If you have numbers of the week before that, Derrick Lewis and (Curtis) Blaydes, the numbers was high in the audience, and the numbers went down. I totally understand that. But listen, eight fights. Man, can you count people that have eight fights that can play and do what he did to Rozenstruik, man? Who can stand in front of Rozenstruik and play with him?

“Stylistically speaking, I don’t see someone outstriking Ciryl Gane. Mainly, we’re improving how to get people on the ground because he has sick jiu-jitsu right now. So yeah, we’re thinking how to improve him, and we’ll be there anyway. He still has time to improve.”

To see the full interview with Lopez, check out the video below.