Curtis Blaydes believes Ciryl Gane won’t be able to make any significant improvements to his grappling no matter how hard he tries.
Gane is coming off a first-round submission loss to Jon Jones in their vacant heavyweight title fight at UFC 285. The fight was a cakewalk for Jones, who took the Frenchman down with ease and submitted him in a little over two minutes. Prior to that, Francis Ngannou also dominated him with his wrestling in their heavyweight title fight at UFC 270.
Curtis Blaydes On Ciryl Gane
After his loss to Jon Jones, Gane promised to work on his wrestling, because as good a striker as he is, his grappling is suspect. In a recent interview with Lowkick MMA (as transcribed by BJPenn.com), Blaydes said that no matter how hard he tries, ‘Bon Gamin’ won’t be able to make significant improvements to his wrestling game.
“I think he’s like a lot of guys,” Blaydes said. “He got away without having to wrestle. Just like Francis when he fought Stipe [Miocic]. He got away with not having to learn how to wrestle. There’s a lot of guys with holes in their games because they only focus on one aspect of MMA. I know a lot of people are expecting him just to plug it. (But) it takes years to learn how to grapple. He’s not gonna get it. He’s not gonna get it. I don’t expect him to get it.”
Blaydes is currently scheduled to face Sergey Pavlovich at UFC Fight Night in April.
Do you agree with Curtis Blaydes?
