Coach Conversation | UFC Freedom 250: Alex Pereira vs Ciryl Gane

For the first of Sunday’s two championship matchups, Kyte connected with Xtreme Couture head coach Eric Nicksick to discuss the ins and outs of the interim heavyweight title fight between Alex Pereira and Ciryl Gane.

Best Trait of Each Fighter

Kyte: What’s the best trait of each fighter?

Nicksick: The best trait for me with Ciryl Gane is obviously gonna be his movement. Probably the one thing with him that gave me the biggest nightmares in breaking him down for Francis (Ngannou) was he’s so good at his pull-counters off his footwork. What I mean is that a lot of times he’ll slide into power — he’ll let you over-throw and he’s able to slide, pull-counter, kind of like Izzy (Adesanya) does off that shake step. He’ll be orthodox, slides into southpaw, and walks you into power.

Nicksick: The last time I can remember him doing that was with Tai Tuivasa where he was like, “I’m just gonna crack this guy!”

Kyte: And it was in the third round, in the stage of “I’ve got you hurt enough that I can do this” because he’d eaten up the leg, hit him clean a few times, and now I think I can get you out of here.

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Nicksick: You look at the Junior Dos Santos fight, the first (Alexander) Volkov fight and you see that he does such a good job of damaging his prey. It’s “I’m gonna minimize your movement, take your leg away, take your body away, and once I know I have you hurt and damaged, that’s when I’m gonna start pouring it on with the heavier, decisive shots.”

Kyte: It’s just such a different approach. Alex is a different situation here because it’s his first fight at heavyweight, but Gane is still a different approach than most of the guys that he fought at light heavyweight. Jiri (Prochazka) moves around, but I would imagine it’s so different than everyone else you’re used to seeing because heavyweight is, for the most part, coming forward, looking to get into the pocket, have to get into that A-range and B-range.

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Nicksick: It’s really hard to deal with because you don’t want to let him get into a rhythm where you have to go and chase him down and find a knockout. If anybody can do that, it’s Alex Pereira, but it’s very hard to find a guy like Ciryl Gane. He doesn’t get hit clean. He reminds me of Barry Sanders — he doesn’t get squared up in the hole.

Kyte: And we haven’t seen him wear down, either. He hasn’t been in there super-deep, hasn’t had many five-round fights, but even in the ones where he has gone the distance, it’s not like he’s in there huffing and puffing, wearing a lot of damage.

Okay — that’s Gane; what about Pereira and his best traits?

Nicksick: His greatest skill isn’t necessarily his power, which is tremendous, but it’s forcing opponents into predictable reactions. Once he starts to establish the calf kick and back guys towards the fence, the whole menu opens up: left hook, left cross, knee up the middle, head kick off that same look; everything.

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Kyte: Well and to the power point, it’s not question of whether he hits hard — we know he does — but it’s different hitting a guy that is 250 pounds versus someone that is 205 pounds. Yes, they weight more than that on the night, but you know what I mean. Gane has been in there with the best and taken big shots his entire career, and he hasn’t been put out. His two losses are Francis and Jon (Jones) and he got wrestled in both of them. You have power, but you have to find the right ways to use it, and are you going to be able to? So can he use those other pieces to create moments where the power becomes a differentiator? He needs to get Gane making those same movements, giving him familiar reactions and if he does, he’s so good at exploiting them, but it’ll be interesting to see if he can do with Gane.

Kyte: And what about for “Poatan” here?

Nicksick: It’s pretty simple to me and it’s pressure; not reckless pressure, but positional pressure. You have to fight this guy on his shoulder blades, and that’s something we talked about a lot with Francis. You have to funnel him. Your jabs are more for moving him in a direction you know, and now you can close the door on him. A lot of funnel traps. The thing at heavyweight isn’t whether he carries power — nobody doubts that — but it’s whether he can find the target against a mover like Gane.

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What do you have to aim for when guys have that movement? You aim center mass, so if he can find him to the chest, that will funnel to the head shots, and I think that is something he really should focus on is finding his shoulders, finding his chest, and know that you might not be landing.

Kyte: I fully agree and my question in return is do you think he had the ability to fight this way and execute this kind of approach because we haven’t really seen him have to fight this way in the past?

X Factor

Kyte: Okay, so what’s the x-factor here?

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Nicksick: Calf kicks... I think if Alex can implement his calf kicks, Gane’s exits begin to slow down, the cage gets smaller, and Pereira’s power becomes more available, but I also think it should be a part of what Gane’s game plan is as well.

Kyte: Because Alex is real heavy coming forward.

Nicksick: He’s front-foot heavy. Izzy had success with the calf kicks against Alex, and so my question would be what stance do you do it out of? Do you try to match and stay closed, or do you do it from a southpaw stance if you’re Gane and try to make it more of a cut kick? If he’s southpaw, Alex, what are you doing? Are you still going inside calf? Are you staying on the outside calf?

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But if you’re reverse engineering that game plan if you’re Gane, do you stand southpaw to try to take away the closed stance calf kick? Where are you the most offensive and where are you better off trying to attack that leg?

Kyte: Can you be effective from southpaw where you’re switching up where that calf kick is landing, how it’s being thrown versus being in orthodox, but then giving him the lead leg to target?

Nicksick: Right.

Kyte: Even if it’s stuff like elbows in the clinch, knees in the clinch, elbows off the break that look to slice and he doesn’t necessarily see coming. Can you get a little nastier? Can you be a little more grimy with it in those spots that it gives you more opportunities?

Nicksick: Grimy is a great word, and as a coach, one of the things I’ll be watching is the first five minutes, and not who lands the biggest shot; I’m looking at the pace. I want to see who fights at whose pace? If Gane is making Pereira reset, turn, chase, advantage Gane.

Kyte: A hundred percent. It has to be quick for Gane. You can’t let Pereira march you down like his walkout and throw bombs. If you can make him work at even 25 percent more than he wants to, you’re winning.

Nicksick: Exactly.

Kyte: It’s a super-interesting fight. I love it.