Thoughts on Francis Ngannou's Release, Jon Jones vs. Ciryl Gane Match-Up

So what do you think of this John Jones, Cyril Gahn fight? Honestly, I think it's a tougher fight than Francis. Really? I do. I think that Cyril Gahn, his movement, his footwork, he's so good with his front leg and for John Jones, who, remember when he came back from OSP, he looked so stiff and that was a time off and putting a lot of muscle on, he just looked like a slower version of himself. So at the same time, it's a longer time off and you're coming back with way more weight on and you're going against one of the faster heavyweights and the more smoother heavyweights. Instead of Ganyu, where he lands that hard punch, I could do it, but I could just shoot under that hard punch. I mean, Cyril Gahn, you have to watch the kicks, watch the footwork, cut him off. Yeah. The thing is, Cyril Gahn was out-grapbled by Francis when Francis had a bad knee. Because his knee was fucked up and Francis out-grapled him and beat him handily with his grappling. I talked to Eric Nixick and he said Francis' grappling is on a totally different level than he used to be before and he's so big and so strong. He's in camp with Blagoi even off and he said he was just holding him down, doing whatever he wants to him. I'm like, that is really impressive because Blagoi beat Fador in Combat Sambo. He's a monster. He's a monster. He's the one who got stabbed, right? Yeah, in the heart. Yeah, he's crazy. One time, I saw him at, he's under Ali and Ali had a media day for his fighters and Blagoi comes up to me and I make pics every fight and I'll circle fighters where I think he's going to win and I'll post it on my Instagram. He came up to me and he showed up and he's like, you didn't pick me my last fight. I was like, what? I was like, dude, I didn't even know you fighters even really pay attention. I was like, dude, now I started realizing that these guys are like watching it. But of course they watch. Yeah, I was like, this guy's crazy. But I was like, man, I got to pick him every single time he goes off. I was like, nuts. But yeah, I always talk to Eric Nixon. Eric Nixon is one of those coaches that he's like my brother. I'll call him after, hey, they're giving me this guy. What do you think about it? And he would always tell me like, Francis is one of those heavyweights that loves to wrestle like, you know, wrestling practice, strikers, they don't show up. They don't. They hate to be in that grind. Francis is there all the time. He loves to be in that. I mean, especially after that steep a fight, the first deep a fight, he learned like that's where his Achilles heel is. Yeah, grappling. And that also you can't take everybody out. Like sometimes like not in that fight at least steep a just weathered the storm somehow or another. Yeah. And you have to have the gas tank and you have to have the grappling to survive all those other exchanges. But that was at his moment. Moment. Remember when he just knocked everybody out and he had like two minutes of fight time. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you fight a guy. Oh, thanks. Pass the second round. Well, it's also like we talked about with Hamza when Hamza went after Kevin Holland. If you get out of that round, how much do you have left? Yeah, he got out of the round steep a made it out of the round and then steep start dominating. But that second fight, man, Francis is takedown defense. He looked good. Patient Francis. That's what DC was saying. Patient Francis is scary Francis. Yeah, that's why I'm mad. Yeah. Because I feel like we were deprived of one of the great fights in MMA, one of the most compelling fights in MMA. Does it mean I'm not interested in Cyril Gahn and Jon Jones? I'm very interested in that fight. For all the things you listed. Also for Cyril Gahn's performance against Tai Tuivasa. It's like, God damn Cyril Gahn. And Cyril Gahn does a lot of shit that's very unusual. Like first of all, he stands totally sideways and he does like a twisting kick with his front leg to throw a front kick. You know he does that? Yeah. Very weird. Yeah. Like he stands totally sideways and he like twists his leg in. He doesn't stick it up and stab it forward. He like twists it and go in. Yeah. You never did that. Well, Taekwondo. It's a twisting kick. Yeah. Yeah. It's called a twisting kick. Okay. Yeah. So no, that's him throwing side kicks. Yeah. He threw a spinning heel kick. He throws this kick off the front leg. If you go to Tai Tuivasa. The one he was landing to that front to the body. Oh my God, dude. Tai is so tough though, man. He's so tough. Tai is so tough. That was a crazy ass fight. And that was a perfect fight to like showcase what Cyril Gahn is capable of because his movement, the fluidity of his combinations, and the guy moves like a middleweight. Yeah. He's 240 plus pounds. This was a great ass fight. So he stands sideways and he throws this front kick. And he gets distance. He throws this front kick off the sideways stance and he turns his body. Oh, there's that kick to the body. Those round kicks. Oh, this is the finishing. Oh. Yeah. Very, very interesting, man. Watching the two. There it is. See it? Yeah. See how he throws it? And he throws it off of both sides with the front leg. This is the most agile and probably the most technical of all the heavyweight strikers. Cyril's very well-rounded when it comes to his striking. He's so smooth. Yeah. And he's like intelligent. He understands the distance. All right. Now this is a knee distance. This is not a kick distance. Very interesting fight. So for John, it's going to be can John take him down? How does John perform at heavyweight? Can John close the distance as he is fast? What is the three years off like? Is he hungrier and even better because he's fired up and you know, like y'all must have forgot he's got that mindset? He usually does too, right? Remember he was always that guy that would want to beat you at your own game. Oh, you're a wrestler? I'll wrestle you. You're a striker. I'll strike with you. So he comes out there thinking Cyril Gahn, you're a smooth striker. I'll smooth you. I don't know. It's also a first fight at heavyweight. We really don't know how he's going to respond when he gets hit by a big heavyweight. We don't know anything. Yeah. And it's also John is older now, you know, just a time honestly, a lot of partying. Yeah. John parties, you know, I don't know what he's been doing. Maybe he's been living clean over the last few years. I don't know. I know it's all with a so who don't now. And yeah, maybe that that's a little might so I'll help him too. So I like that. I like so who does mindset and I like that fight ready camp. I think what Henry brings to the table is very unique. His mindset is really incredible. And you know, I talked to Mighty Mouse about it. I had Mighty Mouse on and Demetrius was saying that like he's so meticulous in his training and how he prepares and plans for things. Yeah, like his everything is like very, very focused. I was Dan Ige. He was telling me how he went down there and he was he's like I never talked to anybody with kind of like the war mindset as him. It's like he sees it as like a chess match. He breaks it down in that type of way. It's not like all the squaw out there. See red whatever happens happens. He does this this and this. I said I had breakfast of the month before the Sean Brady fight and he was like, let's watch a little tape on him. Let's let me look up what he what he does and just like watching one tape of Sean Brady. He said, well, he sounds like this. I think you should do this. This low kick will be perfect right here. But just seeing how he breaks down, how he talks to people, it just tells me that being a coach and being at his gym, he'll get deeper and deeper and deeper into those little aspects of the fight that a lot of people don't really care about or look at. A lot of I know a lot of fighters that they'll never even watch tape of somebody they're going to fight. They'll never they're just going there with my tip if I'm in shape and I'm on my bus, I'm going to win. Yeah, I think he's one of the great coaches out there. I think for us, the hobbies probably mean he's one of my all time favorites. It's not my favorite. But I think there's just a few guys like that like Henry so that are just like their next level coaches. Yeah, I have this mindset. That's the most important thing. I feel like it's not all about toughness and I've had coaches that tell me that, oh, well, this guy never fought before. Why are you going to think that he's a good coach? But you don't need to be a fighter or that some people are just better at understanding and breaking down fights in general than having to go in there and fight. Some people can teach, some people can fight. Some of the great coaches like think about guys like Teddy Atlas, wasn't known as a great boxer, amazing coach. Emmanuel Stewart wasn't known as a great boxer, but amazing coach, one of the greatest coaches ever. There's quite a few guys like that. Yeah. Nick Szyk, my coach Mike Valley, never fought before. He's the same way. And like I said, it's like some people are better at teaching. Some people are better at breaking down film and seeing other guys weaknesses. I know what Nick Szyk was telling me that he used to be a football player and he would bring that mindset, that game plan mindset of what's the weakness? If I know these guys are good at the pass, well, we're going to play pass defense. And then fighters don't think like that. For me, when I fought Damian Maya, my goal is to stand a strike with you. I'm not going to grapple with Damian Maya. When I'm fighting Wonderboy, I'm not going to strike with Wonderboy, I'm going to take him down. When I'm fighting these guys a certain way, I'm switching it up each time. Is John in Phoenix now? Is he training down there? He was, I know he was down there. He said he was down there for visiting. Because he was with Jackson Winkle, John. They had a falling out, so he left. I think he was doing stuff out of his garage, but then now he was down with- That's crazy. So, who though? Training down there with them now too. I think, I'm not sure if he's doing his full camp there, but I know he was doing some stuff there at that time. One thing he's done right is put that weight on slowly. That's the one thing he's done right, because he's got accustomed to being 255 pounds and walking around real big and heavy. And he looks real big and heavy. He looks like a heavyweight. He doesn't look like a light heavyweight, the gained weight. He looks like a fucking heavyweight. I wonder who he's sparring with. Because there's this, being in the gym, being who you are, John Jones, you know there's people who want to see how he is and a million people trying to get an inside scoop of, oh how does he look? How does he look? We really haven't heard anything like that from any of the little birds on somebody's shoulder or something like that. So, I wonder if he's actually sparring with anybody, training with anybody, or if he just has that much loyal teammates that are not going to say a word about it until he wants to. I don't know. It's a good question. Because if he's going to fight a guy like Cyril Gawn, he really wants to get some movement, some really top flight kick boxers. Like who does he have that he can work with like that? You really want, Cyril is so good at mixing up the kicks and the knees and the punches and the combinations and he's so light like the way he stands on the outside. Like if you're going to compete against a guy like that, you've got to get some similar looks. And how many similar looks are there out there for a guy that's 245 pounds? That could move like that. Yeah, it moves like Cyril. Yeah, there's not a lot. Yeah, interesting fight. So here's the problem. Let's say John beats Cyril Gawn, okay? And then John fights Stipe and John beats Stipe. Then what? People are sleeping on Curtis Blades. I think he's one of the toughest guys there. My immediate goal is to beat Cyril Gawn and to beat Stipe Miocic, John Jones said. After that I'll be in conversation with the UFC. Go to the UFC heavyweight rankings because I'll show you what I'm fucking interested in. What I'm interested in at UFC heavyweight, click on that shit. Pavlovich. Pavlovich. Oh my God. That's the boy. Yeah. Sergei Pavlovich, that motherfucker, that's the Russian Fedor. I mean the Russian Francis rather. He like comes out guns blazing on people just like Francis used to. That motherfucker can bomb. He's a mon- he's so fast too with that. He's so accurate. Very good. Does it have any fights of his? Not on that website. Oh okay. Not the way I have it. The way he beat Black Beast and Ty to a boss is so quick. I was like, who is this guy? The Ty to a boss fight was incredible. I mean we think about Cyril Gawn going through that war with him and Sergei just put it on him. His boxing is fucking tight. Very tight man. Real power punches. Excellent technique. Big guy too. Yeah. Big heavy fuck. I think Corey was talking about he used to train with him and he was like yeah we'd be in a practice room with us all the time and stuff like that so coming up with K's and him man. I mean this fucking dude's scary. I mean to beat Derek Lewis like that, to have Derek completely on his- I mean look at the combinations he's landing. Mark Smith is- oh there's a Dan Mergle on it, I've seen enough. Look at that. That fucking dude can crack. He can crack. He's fast. He's interesting. So I want to see him fight more obviously he beat two- go to the Ty to a boss fight. He beat two Evasas. I mean the fucking combinations this guy has. Look at this. Boom. Oh that was so smooth. 30 seconds in there. And Ty gets up and just guns blazing. So accurate. Oh my goodness. Dude. So he's to me out of- with Francis leaving he's one of the most interesting guys at heavyweight. If not the most interesting guy at heavyweight. I'm very interested to see him fight a guy like Jon Jones. That's crazy to me. So if Jon gets a few fights at heavyweight, if he gets zero gone, if he beats him that's an F and then if he beats Steve Bimiocic that's another F and then he fights her today.