The Ultimate Fighting Championship returned to Paris for just the second time ever with its latest fight night offering. As with its historic first event a year ago, it was headlined by elite French heavyweight contender Ciryl Gane. At the time, he scored a thrilling victory in front of a roaring home crowd against powerful striker Tai Tuivasa, a fight where Gane was knocked down and badly hurt but came back to stop the Australian late in the third round. He had next fought Jon Jones for the vacant heavyweight title in the main event of a massive pay-per-view but fell short.
Gane sought to get back on track against surging contender Sergey Spivak, a man meant to test Gane’s grappling. Spivak came into the contest having won three in a row and six of his last seven, with the only blemish a first-round knockout loss against another elite contender in Tom Aspinall. Spivak had demonstrated outstanding wrestling, top control, ground-and-pound, and submissions in decimating Greg Hardy, Augusto Sakai, and most recently, Derrick Lewis in under two rounds, while showed improved striking.
Gane’s Dominant Performance
All that was to no avail, as Gane reminded the MMA world how good he is. Effortlessly dancing around the cage like a middleweight, the Frenchman tagged Spivak with sudden strike after strike, an assortment of punches, kicks, knees, and elbows. Spivak appeared stuck in mud by comparison, simply covering up and eating blows, with his few attempts to grapple being capably stuffed. Eventually, the onslaught proved too much, with Gane teeing off on a defenseless Spivak, prompting a stoppage late in the second stanza.
The co-main event featured a top battle of contenders at women’s flyweight. Two-time strawweight champion Rose Namajunas, fresh off losing her crown by majority decision to Carla Esparza, moved up to flyweight to take on the fearsome Manon Fiorot. Fiorot was a perfect 5-0 in the UFC, with all of her wins being one-sided beatings. Still, there were concerns about her level of opposition, as her two biggest wins were Katlyn Chookagian and Jennifer Maia, solid contenders and former title challengers, but not on the same level as Namajunas.
Fiorot’s Victory Over Namajunas
Fiorot proved any doubters wrong. While it was her closest and most competitive fight in the UFC yet, and she sustained a major cut on her head, Fiorot consistently landed more and harder strikes in the first two rounds while skillfully stuffing Rose’s takedown attempts. Namajunas won the last stanza but it wasn’t enough, and the judges felt similarly, giving Fiorot the decision by scores of 30-27, 29-28, and 29-28.
In other action, local Parisian Benoit St. Denis electrified the fans with a second-round knockout of Thiago Moises, his second big win in just two months, alongside a first-round submission of Ismael Bonfim in July. He has now won four in a row in the UFC, all by stoppage. With the second “UFC Paris” over, several exciting matches to book include Ciryl Gane vs. Tom Aspinall, Manon Fiorot vs. the loser of Valentina Shevchenko and Alexa Grasso, and Benoit St. Denis vs. Matt Frevola.