A potential top contender at the
Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight
division may emerge at night’s end.
Via the
UFC on
Thursday, its comeback to Paris on Sept. 2 has been made official.
There is currently one fight scheduled for this
UFC Fight Night card's lineup, which was just announced between
Ciryl
Gane (11-2) and
Sergey
Spivak (16-3). The two heavyweights will battle it out for
upwards of five rounds in front of fans at the Accor Arena. This
will be the second jaunt for the UFC to France, as it first made
the trip with a Gane-featured show on September 2022.
In March, Gane vied for the newly vacated heavyweight throne, and
he faced off against former light heavyweight king
Jon Jones.
After about two minutes, Jones throttled Gane with a guillotine
choke to earn pound-for-pound distinction while handing Gane his
first pro stoppage loss. The defeat for Gane ended the momentum he
gained from his first Parisian UFC trip last September, as he
battered the Aussie for three rounds before forcing the stoppage.
Other than Jones and
Francis
Ngannou for the unified belt in the beginning of 2022, Gane has
passed every test he has encountered.
Moldova’s Spivak has cobbled together a growingly impressive resume
of opponents, with the lion’s share of his wins coming inside the
distance. Currently tying his UFC record of three wins in a row,
Spivak’s 2022 campaign went swimmingly with knockouts of
Greg Hardy
and
Augusto
Sakai. A quick submission of
Derrick
Lewis in February thrust him towards the top of the heavyweight
rankings board. In his last seven appearances, “The Polar Bear” has
only come up short against
Tom
Aspinall, losing by knockout in late 2021.