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#5 UFC Heavyweight Division: Ciryl Gane vs. Junior Dos Santos

Ciryl Gane might be the UFC's best prospect at Heavyweight.

Okay, so to start with, this fight is a brilliant piece of matchmaking from the UFC. The former UFC Heavyweight champion and one of the best fighters in the division’s history, Dos Santos is now 0-3 in his last three outings.

Cigano has also lost all three of those fights by KO. And while he was coming off a three-fight win streak prior to that, it’s worth noting that he simply doesn’t look like the same fighter anymore. He doesn’t weather punishment anywhere near as well, his boxing game appears to have stagnated, and he’s no longer in the shape he was during his prime.

At the age of 36, it’s hardly a surprise. And in fact, there’s an argument to suggest dos Santos should’ve retired following his most recent defeat at the hands of Jairzinho Rozenstruik at UFC 252. But he’s chosen to continue, so the UFC is doing the logical thing – looking to use his name value to build the new kid on the block.

Gane is perhaps the UFC’s very best prospect right now at Heavyweight. The native of France came into the UFC last year with very little experience. He was just 3-0 but had a reputation similar to that of Francis Ngannou when he arrived in the promotion.

If anything, though, Gane has looked even better than Ngannou did at that point. Sure, he hasn’t murdered his foes with brutal striking power as Ngannou did, but he’s out-fought three opponents in every possible area – and ended up finishing two of them with very late submissions.

Injuries have curtailed his UFC run since, and he hasn’t fought in 2020 yet. Assuming he’s fully healthy, though, this could be the chance for him to really break out into the elite level at Heavyweight.

The issue for dos Santos in this fight is that he’s a shopworn, older fighter against a guy who’s incredibly athletically gifted. Gane stands at 6’5” and weighs in at around 265lbs. And unlike some of the UFC’s other Heavyweights, he’s all muscle.

From what we’ve seen of him, he’s also very skilled in all areas, but particularly in his striking. Against Tanner Boser and Don’tale Mayes, for instance, he looked like a Heavyweight version of Alistair Overeem in his PRIDE days - all long strikes from the outside complete with a vicious clinch game.

Dos Santos might have a pure boxing advantage here, as he’s adept at using his jab to set up his bigger strikes. But as he’s gotten older, he’s become far more flat-footed. He was able to jab Blagoy Ivanov and Ben Rothwell to death and even TKO’d Tai Tuivasa, but all three of those fighters are horribly plodding.

Gane certainly isn’t flat-footed, and more to the point, Bon Gamin appears to be capable of corralling an opponent to unload on them. And in the UFC, that’s been dos Santos’ biggest weakness and has led directly to the majority of his losses.

More recently, though, JDS has simply been unable to take a heavy punch. His legs buckled as soon as Rozenstruik hit him cleanly, and the fight was over shortly after. And against Ngannou, he looked worried and panicky from the off and practically walked into the fight-ending shot.

Dos Santos is undoubtedly one of the UFC’s greatest-ever Heavyweights, and he’s got the ability to beat some of the division’s slower prospects. But for me, Gane isn’t amongst them.

He’s the kind of athletic marvel that will probably be able to shellack most opponents despite his lack of experience, and I think he’ll take out JDS in pretty vicious fashion here.

The Pick: Gane via first-round KO