WASHINGTON -- Ciryl Gane is sitting in a cafe a few blocks from the White House, wrapping up an interview that has touched on his life, career and interim heavyweight championship fight against Alex Pereira at UFC Freedom 250 at the White House on Sunday. The conversation is essentially over when Gane leans forward with one last, unsolicited thought.
"This is a strange sport," he tells ESPN. "There is pressure in a game like basketball, yes, but not like this. We go in there trying to kill each other. It's probably not a sport."
He doesn't say this as some grand revelation; it's more like a matter of fact he has inevitably come to learn after 10 years in combat sports.
Gane, of France, is about to appear in his fifth UFC title fight (three undisputed, two interim) -- and in many ways, not much has changed since his first, an interim championship win over Derrick Lewis in 2021. He's still the same lighthearted, fun-loving person he was in the beginning. The guy who throws his arm around someone as he speaks to them and has the loudest laugh in the room.
But in other ways, he has unmistakably matured. He is acutely aware of certain truths of the fight game that he maybe wasn't before.
"He used to be the kid who thought you just train hard, play and enjoy your life -- because a happy fighter is a dangerous fighter, right? -- and that everyone would appreciate that," Gane's head coach, Fernand Lopez, tells ESPN. "He thought everything would be honest, but that's not the game. There is no mercy in this game."
When Gane, 36, first signed with the UFC in 2019, he was eager to share his time with the media and authentically promote himself. With his speed and technique, he was quickly labeled a future heavyweight title contender. Away from the cage, fans gravitated toward his carefree demeanor.
But his first undisputed title fight against former teammate Francis Ngannou was a turning point. The two met for Ngannou's belt at UFC 270 in January 2022. In the buildup to the fight, Ngannou, who left Lopez's gym in Paris to train in the U.S., claimed he had once knocked Gane out in a sparring session, which Gane says never happened.
At a news conference during their fight week, Gane had the opportunity to directly question Ngannou -- and believed that when confronted face-to-face, Ngannou would back off. Instead, Ngannou suggested Gane didn't remember the left head kick that knocked him down because he was unconscious.
"He was kind of naive," Lopez said. "He knew they were fighting, but he also thought they were coming from a place of 'We used to be friends, we know each other, if I look at you, you will tell the truth.' He couldn't comprehend this idea of 'I can use this to get into your head.'"
An even bigger turning point came a year later, during a fight that lasted only a couple of minutes. Jon Jones made a dismissive comment on the UFC's "Countdown" show before UFC 285 in March 2023 about Gane's love of video games, saying, "I'm sitting here focusing on combat; he's out here playing video games."
When Jones then submitted Gane with a guillotine choke 2 minutes, 4 seconds into the opening round, Jones' prefight comments came back to haunt Gane. He couldn't believe the narrative that was spun. Ciryl Gane doesn't train MMA seriously. The same video games he had played throughout his rise in the UFC were suddenly proof of his lack of work ethic.
Three years earlier, when he had won his first two fights in the UFC by submission, analysts had praised his ground game. Following the Jones loss, he was hearing it said that he didn't understand wrestling.
"I cut out everything after that," Gane said. "That was a little bit of my therapy after Jones. I went very low-key. 'Leave me alone. Talk about the other fighters, please. Forget me forever.'"
It wasn't a dramatic break with fans. It was a realization that sharing certain aspects of his life -- the personal, joyful, private ones -- was pointless. The same post that was applauded one moment could be used against him in the next. Gane declined more interviews and posted fewer personal moments to social media. To this day, three years after that loss to Jones, nearly all the content he shares is from the gym.
He's still playing video games and has even been practicing his golf swing on a simulator in Washington this week, but he doesn't post about those things. Nor does he seek attention of any kind, really. When it was pointed out to him this week that he might be flying under the radar, he nonchalantly replied, "Perfect."
"Ciryl is a good, happy person, so his mentality was to share that early on," his older brother, David, told ESPN. "But social media is not a happy place. Social media is mostly negative. I don't think it was him being naive, I just think he's now learned how to protect himself a little better. His home bubble is more protected than it was before."
Gane's new, small-circle approach was evident during his last fight, an undisputed title shot against Tom Aspinall last October. Aspinall, of England, became something of a media darling leading up to their fight. He had endured a long sabbatical while waiting to fight Jones, who retired instead.
Aspinall had finished seven of his nine UFC opponents in the first round to that point, and there were certainly expectations he would do the same to Gane.
"Before the Tom Aspinall fight: 'Oh, wow, Ciryl, you're gonna die,'" Gane remembered reading. "'Tom is going to kill you, Ciryl, in the first minute of the first round.' OK. We will see."
Gane, who was a heavy betting underdog, appeared to be getting the better of Aspinall early until the fight ended in a no-contest when Aspinall suffered an accidental eye poke he is still recovering from.
Despite the inconclusive result, many saw it as a breakout performance for Gane. He and his team saw it as another simple example in his well-established track record. From early fanfare through doubts and criticisms after his two championship losses, their belief that he is still a championship-caliber fighter never changed, only the outside narrative did.
Going into Sunday's bout against Pereira (13-3), who looks to become the first three-weight champion in UFC history, Gane hasn't reinvented himself. He has added layers to what was already there -- a mental coach, a nutritional team that regularly analyzes everything from his blood to sleeping patterns -- but he is not fundamentally that much different than the Gane who walked into his previous title opportunities.
He is wiser, more experienced and more aware of the game he's playing. He has always treated MMA like a sport. Now, he's contemplating whether it even qualifies as one.
In his personal life, he's as joyful and kind as he has ever been. In his professional one, he's hardened. Whether MMA is a sport or not, it can get ugly. Gane understands that now.
"At the beginning of your career, you don't know exactly what the line is for why you do this," Gane said. "Yes, I'm doing it for me, but also for my country and for my fans. You believe in that, you really do. And when you do well, it's OK, but when you make one mistake, everything can turn on you. And you don't understand that, because you were always pure and honest with people, so then you feel bad.
"My mission is for me now. I'm not fighting to be appreciated by people and I'm not fighting for the money. It's just about me. Finish my mission."