Jon Jones' recent tactics not likely to get it done against Ciryl Gane
After nine fights in the UFC, Ciryl Gane has established himself as one of the best distance striking heavyweights in the promotion. Overall, he has landed 5.11 significant strikes per minute while absorbing only 2.25 per minute. His resulting +2.86 striking differential ranks 15th among ranked UFC fighters.
Excluding his lone defeat against then-champion Francis Ngannou, Gane’s striking differential actually improves to +3.29. That measure would rank 12th among ranked fighters. While Gane still had the significant striking edge in his fight against Ngannou (63 to 43), his offensive striking rate was greatly diminished by the threat of power and some surprising wrestling from Ngannou.
Going into the fight at UFC 270, Ngannou had landed only one takedown in his previous 13 UFC fights. Against Gane, he landed four of his five takedown attempts. In the final round, he scored a rather essential reversal and rode out the last minutes of the fight. Ngannou finished with 8:29 of control time in the 25-minute fight.
The fight was quite a departure from Gane’s other UFC appearances. He has never surrendered a takedown in any of his other fights in the Octagon. On the other hand, he has not really faced any strong wrestlers, and his other eight opponents have attempted a total of only four takedowns against him.
This appears to set up a rather clear path to victory for Jon Jones. Jones, of course, comes from a wrestling background. He was a state champion on the high school level in New York and won a junior college national championship in 2006. Early in his career, wrestling was an essential element of his approach to the fight game, but it has shrunk as his career has progressed.
Jones has still averaged 1.85 takedowns per 15 minutes of fight time, and he has held his opponents in control positions for 23% of his total fight time. These are solid grappling numbers as both are slightly above the average for a ranked fighter, 1.66 and 22.45% respectively.
In his 22-fight career, Jones has only been outlanded once. This occurred in his very last fight against Dominick Reyes. Even though Jones attempted nine takedowns in the fight, he secured only two and collected only 1:41 of control time in the 25-minute fight. The fight played out as mostly a distance striking contest, and Reyes had the overall significant striking edge 116 to 104.
In Jones’ previous fight against Thiago Santos, he seemed much less interested in working for takedowns. He registered only one takedown attempt and finished without any control time. Jones’ 0.64 striking differential was the fourth worst of his career.
Whether by choice or by a decaying of his wrestling skills, Jones’ performance was much less impressive when he was forced to strike at distance for the vast majority of the fight. For his career, he has only a +0.51 striking differential when 90% of his landed significant strikes occurred at distance. When he has been able to mix in strikes in the clinch and on the ground, his differential has been much better.
When Jones does have success striking at distance, a major contributing factor is his ability to land leg kicks from the outside. For example, in his first fight against Alexander Gustafsson in 2013, he landed 53 of his 134 significant strikes to Gustafsson’s legs, while the then-challenger was only able to land 14. For his career, 28.5% of Jones’ landed significant strikes have been to the legs of his opponents. That proportion would rank 10th among ranked fighters.
However, it remains an open question how Jones’ leg kicking offense will work out on Saturday. Gane is also known to target the legs of his opponents. In fact, 29% of his landed significant strikes have been leg kicks. It is also important to remember that Jones is coming up in weight. At light heavyweight, he often had a height and reach advantage on his opponents. He will retain his absurd reach edge over Gane (84 to 81 inches), but in terms of height they are both listed at 76 inches.
Considering Jones is returning to action for the first time since 2020 and Gane is only nine fights into his UFC run, it should not be a surprise that there are a lot of questions surrounding this fight. How will Jones look at the new weight? Was the lack of effective wrestling against Santos and Reyes a sign of a stylistic choice or a decline in wrestling ability? Has Gane improved his wrestling since it cost him against Ngannou? As the cliche goes, that is why they fight the fights.