Ciryl Gane has revealed Anthony Joshua as his inspiration for getting into a life of combat sports. The former UFC heavyweight champion had just started training in Muay Thai when he watched ‘AJ’ fight.
It was right then and there that he decided to get more like the champion boxer. If you pay attention to the finer aspects of their techniques, the pair have very similar fighting styles even though they are in different sports.
Ahead of his fight against Alexander Volkov at UFC 310, the fighter said,
“Like damn, this guy is so f***ing good! ‘I want to be like him!’…. ‘okay, let me do some push-ups like this! I want to be like him!’. It was a motivation, and everybody needs that, to have a target.”
They represent a new breed of heavyweight fighters who are muscular, explosive, and light on their feet.
Ciryl Gane used these exact characteristics to work his way up to a title shot after knocking out most of the contenders in the division. But following a devastating loss to Jon Jones at UFC 285, he is now looking to fight his way back to the top.
And the best way to do that is by defeating Volkov this weekend.
‘Bon Gamin‘ is still one of the deadliest fighters in the division and even though he is fighting Volkov, the man he had his eyes set on was the UFC interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall, who he claims declined to fight him.
Gane claims Aspinall turned him down
Gane claims Aspinall refused to fight him in March this year. The Frenchman has not fought since September 2023 and was looking to book a fight in early 2024.
In an interview with Ariel Helwani for his YouTube show, the former title contender spoke about how a fight against Aspinall was on the cards,
“But it was not possible because I refused him in September but the UFC didn’t propose me any contract with him….but I didn’t ask him on social media.”
To be fair to Aspinall, he has wanted to fight Ciryl Gane for a long time and even offered to fight him in September 2023 but the Frenchman refused. Besides, following his win over Curtis Blaydes, where he had to defend his interim title, as ridiculous as that sounds, Aspinall has been adamant that his next fight will be for the undisputed title.
And since Gane doesn’t hold UFC gold right now, it wouldn’t have made any sense for Aspinall to take him on.
