Serghei Spivac has the skills to continue Ciryl Gane’s wrestling nightmare. Can the former interim champ wake up?

On two of the judges’ scorecards, Ciryl Gane came one round away from defeating Francis Ngannou and winning the UFC heavyweight title last year. However, Ngannou was able to take advantage of Gane’s shortcomings in the grappling game. Over the final three rounds, Ngannou landed four takedowns and held control positions for 51% of the fight time. 

While Gane has largely avoided getting caught up in the grappling game prior to his fight against Ngannou, the loss raised serious questions about the Muay Thai convert's ability to handle someone determined to put the fight on the floor. In his last fight against Jon Jones, those questions were answered in perhaps the most depressing way possible. Jones easily took him down twice and submitted him in only 124 seconds.

Gane’s quick rise through the UFC heavyweight division has been impressive. However, these two fights illuminate a very clear gap in his overall MMA game. In the bouts against Ngannou and Jones, he stopped only one of the seven takedowns he faced. He will likely need to improve his wrestling to earn another shot at the title. The heavyweight division is not often extraordinarily deep, but there are usually competent grapplers who can take advantage or a clear weakness.

On Saturday in Paris, Gane faces off against one of those competent grapplers. Serghei Spivac got off to a bit of a tough start to his UFC run as he lost two of his first three fights. However, he has settled down since and won six of his last seven fights. For the most part, he has done it with his wrestling.

In his UFC career, Spivac has averaged 5.05 takedowns per 15 minutes of fight time. That is the eighth highest takedown rate among ranked fighters. He has scored 27 takedowns in his seven UFC victories and zero in his three losses.

Spivac has not only landed takedowns, but he also does a rather large portion of his striking on the ground. In the UFC, 47% of his landed significant strikes have come on the ground. That is the sixth largest proportion of ground strikes among ranked fighters.

Of course, Gane does the vast majority of striking at range. Despite the two losses, he still lands 5.08 significant strikes per minute and has absorbed only 2.25. His resulting +2.83 striking differential is the 16th best in the ground of ranked fighters. Excluding the fights against Ngannou and Jones, that differential rises to +3.29, which would rank 10th in the same group.

Of course, Gane will need to stay off the cage and ground in order to land his strikes. That might be tough considering his dismal wrestling performances against Jones and Ngannou. At the same time, if he has made strides in that area,  he will certainly get the opportunity to show off those improvements against Spivac.