Dana White has zero interest in putting an asterisk next to Ciryl Gane’s name. In a recent interview with Stefan Struve for Eurosport, the UFC boss conceded he spotted the illegal shots in Gane’s knockout of Alex Pereira, then argued they had nothing to do with the result.
“I did see the illegal blows during the fight at the White House,” White said. “But at that time, I didn’t think, ‘Oh my god, that’s why the fight was won.’ He had already done the damage to Pereira at that time.”
When Struve asked whether the backlash got inflated because of Gane’s eye pokes against Tom Aspinall, White answered “Definitely,” and kept going. “It doesn’t (overshadow Gane as a fighter). Everyone knows he’s good.”
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How we got here
Gane stopped Pereira this past June at UFC Freedom 250, the co-main event on the White House lawn. Herb Dean jumped in during Round 2 as Bon Gamin unloaded a flurry of punches, and Poatan came out of it livid with the referee. Pereira felt he’d eaten a pile of shots to the back of the head and believes the fight goes differently without them. White, clearly, doesn’t buy it.
The Pereira fight didn’t happen in a vacuum, which is why this story has legs. Gane’s eye pokes sidelined Aspinall, and Aspinall later vacated the heavyweight title a couple of months ago after a setback in his recovery. Go back further and Gane faced similar accusations of illegal strikes during his win over Junior dos Santos, as Bloody Elbow pointed out. Some corners of the internet have flat-out branded him a cheater, and BJPenn.com noted that every Gane fight now turns into a foul-watch party.
What’s next
The timing of White’s defense is no accident. Gane makes his first title defense tonight against Josh Hokit in the UFC 334 main event at Madison Square Garden. Friday’s weigh-ins in New York made it official, and Bloody Elbow reported that Gane will carry a 10-pound advantage into the cage even though he weighed in at his lightest since 2019. The card also features Kayla Harrison defending her title against Amanda Nunes.
Hokit, for his part, has spent fight camp trolling the whole saga, posting skits of himself training to deal with eye pokes. That’s the kind of challenger energy I want on a pay-per-view poster.
My take: White has a point about the Pereira fight, since Pereira was in real trouble when Dean waved it off, and I’m not rewriting history over a few stray shots in a finishing sequence. But the boss can only explain away so much. One foul is bad luck, two is a talking point, and three across dos Santos, Aspinall and Pereira is a scouting report that Hokit’s camp turned into comedy content. Gane can shut everyone up the easy way tonight at MSG by keeping his fingers closed and his punches in front of the ear. If Hokit spends any part of this fight rubbing his eye and pointing at the referee, Dana’s Eurosport interview ages about as well as milk left on the White House lawn.
