Not so long ago, Cyril Gane was the proverbial heir to the UFC heavyweight division. But losses to Francis Ngannou and Jon Jones put a dent to his coronation. And now his refusal to fight interim champion Tom Aspinall to film a movie has come under intense criticism from Daniel Cormier.
The former double champion released a video on his YouTube channel where he went on to bash Gane for turning down a shot at the title
“Ciryl Gane was the first guy offered the fight, and Tom said yes. But Ciryl has a movie going on right now. And because he is doing a movie, he did not want to go back into fight camp.”
DC even compared Gane’s situation to Michael Bisping’s, saying that the Brit never had an issue fighting and winning the world title just after a week of finishing filming for a movie.
Hell, I remember Michael Bisping being on a movie set, one week later he is the world champion. I don’t know that you pass up these opportunities. But I don’t know how Ciryl Gane did not recognize that it is a very unique circumstance.”
As Cormier stated, Gane was offered the title shot before Curtis Blaydes. However, he turned it down as he was filming for a movie. The UFC was then forced to move on. Cormier used Michael Bisping’s example to state how Gane might have made a huge mistake in turning down the fight.
Cyril Gane making a huge mistake not following Michael Bisping’s footsteps?
At UFC 199, Michael Bisping was called up on short notice after Chris Weidman pulled out of the fight. At the time, Bisping had just finished shooting for a movie and was not at all in fight shape.
However, he grabbed the opportunity with both hands and bagged a world title to show for it.
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In Gane’s defense, he would have had to juggle shooting and training both at the same time which could have been extremely demanding. Therefore, it can be understood why Gane turned down the fight.
On the flip side title shots do not come by that often therefore, turning it down could be a major regret for Gane later in his career.
