Ciryl Gane spent most of the UFC 270 press conference going back and forth with Francis Ngannou about a situation that happened in sparring. Ngannou claims he knocked out Gane with a left high kick.
Ciryl Gane confirmed that Francis Ngannou hurt him with the kick but that was the extent of it. The UFC interim heavyweight champion was not happy with the Cameroon fighter's claims.
“No, this is not the truth,” the UFC interim champion said at the pre-fight press conference. “Honestly, you know me already. With Francis, we did some sparring and it was a really great sparring from Francis. It was a beautiful left kick and the problem with Francis is he don’t like to spar, technical sparring. You like to make power and I told you a little bit a few times. So, you give me the left kick, you hurt me. You see I’m honest with you. You hurt me, you hurt me but you don’t knock me down. This is not a knockdown.”
Fernand Lopez, Ciryl Gane's coach, spoke to Yahoo! Sports about the claims and he explained the situation. He also denied the claims that the UFC heavyweight champion knocked out Gane.
“A knockdown is when a fighter is hit and he goes to the ground off his feet,” Lopez told Yahoo Sports. “A knockout is when a fighter is hit and blacks out. Neither of those ever happened, 100 percent no. What happened was, they were sparring and Francis threw a huge kick with his left leg that touched Ciryl. Ciryl got angry and said, ‘What the f*** are you doing?’ and wanted to go after him. I said, ‘Guys, let’s stop the sparring.’ Ciryl was really pissed off, but I thought it was best not to go forward, so I stopped the sparring for the day.”
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