Las Vegas — Heavyweight Ciryl Gane was forced to keep his mind in the fight during his battle with Alexander Volkov at UFC 310, after breaking his toe early.
The former interim champ was looking to cement himself as next in line, at least once the Jon Jones-Tom Aspinall situation is ironed out.
“The first time I kicked him in the cage, I looked at my toes, because my toes are like that [makes a 90 degree angle],” Gane revealed, speaking with media outlets including Cageside Press backstage at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“I look at my toes, I tried to push on my toes. So this has changed a lot of my mindset, so I was frustrated about that. I trained a lot, a lot, a lot, but this is my sport.”
Many, including UFC President and CEO Dana White, saw Volkov as the rightful winner on Saturday. There are positives that can be taken away from the controversial split decision win, however.
“Of course, of course, of course. I got the victory, I proved I’m good. I worked a lot of my ground game. I [put] him in a dangerous situation; fortunately for example, I remembered the Von Flue choke. I remember my coach [saying] ‘step on your feet to finish the position!’ It wasn’t possible to have my big toe, to push myself to finish the position. But anyway, we kept him in danger, so that’s why we won.”
Despite the injury – Gane was wearing a protective boot during his post-fight press conference appearance – he plans to get back to the gym soon. It seems he’ll look to work around the injury.
“I want to be back as soon as I can. We will see for my toes. We will go back to training during the fixing of my toes,” stated Gane. “We can do some conditioning training. We’re going to go back really early at the gym, because we want to stay active. I want to be back in the cage as soon as I can.”
Asked whether he’d call for the Aspinall fight, Gane said he’d ask for anybody, but added that “I’m the number one contender, I proved it tonight, so we will see.”
He later spoke with Cageside Press about the importance of Saturday’s bout. “It was really important. The good thing about the fight tonight is that I proved I can wrestle, I can defend, I’m a danger on the ground. I’ve got no choice because on the feet I had no stability, nothing working good. I proved it tonight. Volkov was amazing tonight, he was amazing. Congratulations for him, he was amazing, he did some things really well. But I won, so I proved it. I’m the number one contender.”
Watch the full UFC 310 post-fight press conference with Ciryl Gane above.
