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Coach Conversation | Jon Jones vs Ciryl Gane
Elite MMA Coaches Break Down Saturday's UFC 285 Heavyweight Championship Main Event
Ahead of every championship fight, UFC staff writer E. Spencer Kyte will sit down with some of the sharpest coaching minds in the sport to break down the action and provide UFC fans with insights into each championship pairing from the men that spend their days getting these elite athletes prepared to compete on the biggest stage in the sport.
For UFC 285, Kyte called upon Eliot Marshall, co-owner and head instructor at Easton Training Center in Denver, Colorado, and Tyson Chartier, the head coach of the New England Cartel to provide their thoughts on four points heading into the main event clash for the vacant UFC heavyweight title between the returning Jon Jones and former interim titleholder Ciryl Gane.
Best Trait of Each Fighter
Kyte: At a time in the sport where everyone is pretty solid everywhere, generally speaking, what is the one thing that each of these competitors do better than anyone else?
How To Watch UFC 285: Jones vs Gane
Marshall: For Jon Jones it’s his Fight IQ — he’s so smart! He’s not singularly phenomenal at any of the disciplines — he’s not the best at anything — but how he puts things together… I think it’s him and GSP that put a fight together the best.
Ciryl Gane, it’s his movement at heavyweight; his movement combined with his power because he can sting you. He moves so well, and he can sting you.
Chartier: For Gane, it’s his athleticism; he can touch-and-move. For a guy that is as big as him, he’s very athletic. He’s a well-put-together, athletic heavyweight, and very few people are that athletic at that size, with the quickness that he has.
Jones is just so well-rounded, just like Shevchenko. He’s great everywhere, and he’s got all that experience. He’s “The G.O.A.T.” for a reason — he’s fought everybody there is and looked great even when his training was subpar.
Path to Victory for Each Fighter
Kyte: Everyone would love a 10-second knockout or a quick submission, but that’s not often how these things go, especially not at the championship level. Instead, it’s usually the competitor that has crafted the better game plan and did the better job of executing things inside the Octagon that comes away with their hand raised and the gold around their waist.
So, how does either man get it done on Saturday night?
Chartier: I think the most logical path to victory for Jones is to wrestle — mix in some wrestling, get him tired. Ngannou was able to out-wrestle him with bad knees, so what’s Jones going to be able to do?
For Gane, it’s touch, move, touch, move, and defend the takedown. You’ve got to defend early and hope that Jones bails on it. He’s got to come out early, stay low and long, not over-commit on anything, and touch, touch, touch until you get a little more into the fight.
Reasons To Watch UFC 285: Jones vs Gane
Marshall: For Gane, it’s very obvious: pick and pull on Jon Jones. Pick and pull, (a thousand cuts), and if the knockout presents itself, take it, but we’ve never seen Jon Jones in any sort of trouble like that, so it’s hard to say that that is a path to victory, right? No one has ever been able to do it.
He’s got to be very disciplined, be on his horse a lot; touch and not be too overly aggressive.
And then Jon Jones, I’m going with the same answer I gave with Shevchenko — however he wants. He’s gonna stay long, he’s gonna touch, and he’s gonna put forward pressure on. If he wants the takedown, he’s gonna get it, and he could finish this on the ground.
X Factor
Kyte: If there were one thing that was going to significantly impact how this fight plays out — that swings it in one direction or the other — what would it be?
Marshall: The X factor is heavyweight Jon Jones, and he’s fighting a real heavyweight; he’s not fighting a heavyweight that is thinking about making 205 pounds. Top of the food chain heavyweights are monsters — absolute monsters — and there’s a difference between a big 205’er and a real heavyweight.
It seems as though he did it well — he took the time and he put real weight on. He’s gonna show up and you’re gonna be like, “That’s a heavyweight!”
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Chartier: What we don’t know is how is Jones gonna move at heavyweight? He took that time to put on the weight, does he move the same? Is he slow now? Does he get more tired in different places?
You put on muscle mass, that comes at a cost; it’s not free. He doesn’t wrestle a ton in a lot of his fights, but now he’s going up a weight class, with all that extra mass, and if he decides to wrestle, does he get more tired? To me that’s the X factor — is he going to be able to move the same at heavyweight?
One Coaching Curiosity
Kyte: Coaches see the sport differently and look at the sport differently than anyone else, picking up on different things and paying attention to movements, habits, or intangible pieces that others might not notice, but that could have a significant impact on the action inside the Octagon.
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Every matchup offers its own unique collection of elements that might pique a coach’s interest and get them paying a little closer attention to once the fight gets underway.
So what is that one thing in this matchup?
Chartier: Can Jones deal with the power of the bigger guys? Can he eat shots?
There are guys that have landed on him. He was in these close fights that could have gone either way, he got hit a lot, but can he do that at heavyweight? One shot at heavyweight can end your night, so can he take those shots, wear them as well as he did at light heavyweight, and keep marching forward?
I’m really curious to see how his chin holds up at heavyweight, how his durability holds up at heavyweight, taking shots from an actual heavyweight?
Marshall: Jon Jones is back, dog — that’s the curiosity! Let’s see what we’ve got!
The whole championship thing I was talking about before (with Valentina Shevchenko) — that m*****f***** won the title in 2011 and never lost it; never lost it in competition. Does he still want to do this? It’s been three years since we saw him fight.
Do you even want to do this anymore? You can do a lot of things in life that you don’t really want to do in the moment. I’ve got to go answer some emails that I don’t really want to answer, but I’m gonna be all right getting them done. Fighting? You can’t have an ounce of “I don’t want to do this” because it just starts to scream in your head, so we gotta see if Jon Jones wants to do this still.
I know he says he does, and I know he’s (one of the best of all time), but it just might not be that anymore.
UFC 285: Jones vs Gane took place live from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 4, 2023. See the Final Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC Fight Pass!
