Credit where credit is due, Jon Jones is known as a dirty fighter who is willing to do almost anything for a win, and he doesn’t shy away from his intentions. While many fighters think it’s somewhat cowardly to study their opponent’s matches, ‘Bones’ has no problem with the process. Now he claims to find two major shortcomings in Ciryl Gane’s game.
Jones had this to say about his opponent, “Ciryl seems like a nice guy. Seems like a – you know, he’s a great fighter. Great footwork, great striking, ambidextrous in his stances – and I think it’s going to be a great fight. I respect Ciryl Gane, I really do, but I study film constantly and I just see a lot of patterns. When he’s in one stance, there’s things he really loves to do.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP4ephf_rXw
“He goes to the same well a lot. When he’s in the opposite stance, he has his tendencies. Outside of that, I realized that he doesn’t have much wrestling. He relies on evasion, trying to get away. He relies on jiu-jitsu instead of solid takedown defense, and same with the ground game. I watched Francis Ngannou be able to rack up maybe five, six minutes of top time in that fight, and Francis is not a guy that’s known to control people on the top,” he continued.
Will this analysis help Jon Jones against Ciryl Gane?
Gane was a brutal Muay Thai fighter before he joined the UFC. As the sport demanded, ‘Bon Gamin’ also rocked a super dangerous fighting style through which he brutalized his opponents. He seems to have calmed down quite a bit now, but that past beast can come alive anytime, as we saw in the Tai Tuivasa fight.
Jones is not his young swift self anymore, and the extra weight will probably slow him down quite a bit. If he tries to pick on a narrow decision like his last few fights, he might succeed, but Gane probably also has a game plan to avoid such incidents. How has the long inactivity affected ‘Bones’?
We hopefully will find out on March 4th!
