Francis Ngannou believes he is being made to look bad by Ciryl Gane’s team.
Ngannou and Gane are set for a massive UFC Heavyweight Title unification clash. The two will collide on Jan. 22 in the main event of UFC 270. The action will be held inside the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
Ngannou captured the main heavyweight title back in March. He knocked out Stipe Miocic to capture the gold. As for Gane, he was given an interim title bout against Derrick Lewis back in August. It was a one-sided thrashing in favor of Gane, who scored a third-round TKO finish to lay claim to the interim gold.
Francis Ngannou Scoffs At Ciryl Gane Sparring Footage
Francis Ngannou and Ciryl Gane were once training partners. There has been some bad blood since Ngannou split from MMA Factory Paris back in 2018. Sparring footage has been released and Ngannou believes it paints a negative picture of him by design.
Two former teammates on a collision course.
Will we see Ciryl Gane and Francis Ngannou going at it for real in the Octagon? pic.twitter.com/3EUOQG7vHJ
— UFC on TNT Sports (@ufcontnt) June 28, 2021
Here’s what Ngannou had to say about the footage on his YouTube channel (via MMAJunkie.com).
“When I saw that footage, my first reaction was laughing – because I know exactly what happened at those training sessions. But this is the thing: When they want do some highlight, they always choose the part of the video that they use and they have a lot of videos like that because at the time, they were filming our training sessions to promote him, his fight and everything. So there was a lot of footage from those few training sessions, but a lot of them never came out and will never come out, and I know for a fact that they will never come out.
“It’s about to make him look better and make me look bad – to prove that he’s the man. I really get intrigued by (that) stuff sometimes and then how they just control people’s mind, conditioning them to think – and suddenly they just shift from one way to other way of thinking. And I’m like, how easy is that to manipulate people? … They’re really good at manipulation. But at the end of the day, as I said, we both know. Everyone knows for a fact.”
This will be Ngannou’s first attempt at a successful title defense. Up to this point, Gane has gone unbeaten in his pro MMA career. Gane has a 10-0 record while Ngannou is riding a five-fight winning streak with all of those victories coming by way of knockout or TKO.
