Fight Facts: UFC Fight Night 226 ‘Gane vs. Spivak’

Fight Facts is a breakdown of all of the interesting information and Octagon oddities on every card, with some puns, references and portmanteaus to keep things fun. These deep stat dives delve into the numbers, providing historical context and telling the stories behind those numbers.

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TOTAL NUMBER OF UFC FIGHTS: 7,325
TOTAL NUMBER OF UFC EVENTS: 662

The Ultimate Fighting Championship set sail for Paris, where it once more planted its flag and the locals ended up with fistfuls of treasure. As all but one French fighter prevailed against a foreigner in front of a raucous Parisian crowd, it was practically a party from start to finish. UFC Fight Night 226 featured a heavyweight sniper king, the return of a man that took many years away to train and a debuting 145er that plans on becoming king of the pirates.

Don’t Be Fooled by Appearances: When not including the match pitting two countrymen against one another, French fighters performed extremely well at night’s end. The local combatants won six of their seven outings against foreign adversaries, with the lone losing fighter Zarah Fairn.

What is Gane, is Gane! In eight minutes and 44 seconds, Ciryl Gane connected on Sergey Spivak with 109 significant strikes while absorbing back about 10% of that amount. With a current total of 856, just six men in the history of the UFC’s heavyweight division have landed more. Andrei Arlovski’s 1,453 stand far above the pack.

Power Isn’t Determined by Your Size: As a pro, France’s Gane has now authored 75% of his wins inside the distance. He now sports half of his victories via knockout, but has only earned one in the first round.

They Will All Watch as I Change the World: After three rounds of combat, Manon Fiorot emerged the victor over Rose Namajunas. This marks her sixth win as a UFC flyweight, tying her with four other women including Erin Blanchfield for the sixth-most in divisional history.

No One Is Born into This World to Be Alone: Despite receiving one of the loudest pops of the night, UFC Fight Night 226 marked the first time that the Nice-born Fiorot had ever competed in MMA in front of a home-country crowd.

Let’s Live for Another Moment: Late into the second round, Benoit St. Denis drummed out Thiago Moises with strikes. “God of War” retained his 100% finish rate with the stoppage, having rattled off four straight finishes in the Octagon since 2022.

Little by Little the Tides are Changing: While Volkan Oezdemir did record his first knockdown since 2019 by dropping Bogdan Guskov, he settled for notching just his second submission win as a pro. “No Time” previous landed a kimura on Mamadou Cisse back in 2012.

Don’t Fall for Their Tricks: In back-to-back finishes, Morgan Charriere and William Gomis put away Manolo Zecchini and Yanis Ghemmouri, respectively, with body shots. This marks the first UFC event where consecutive bouts officially ended courtesy of strikes to the body.

I’m Going to Be King of the Pirates: Charriere saw his overall finish rate move up to 74% by putting Zecchini away in Round 1. “The Last Pirate” has recorded five of his last six wins by knockout, including two via strikes to the midsection.

People’s Dreams…Have No End: After a win over Leandro Issa in 2016, Taylor Lapilus left the UFC. The 31-year-old returned to the promotion to pick up a decision win over Caolan Loughran. The last time he competed in the Octagon, seven of the other 21 fighters on the billing had yet to make their pro debuts, while Namajunas was the only other fighter on the UFC roster at the time.

I Don’t Want to Conquer Anything: Nora Cornolle needed all three rounds to pick up a contentious decision win over Joselyne Edwards. It marked the first time the French muay thai expat had needed to involve the judges to get her hand raised.

I Want to Live: Since joining the promotion in 2021, Edwards has competed seven times. She has heard the final bell in all seven appearances.

He May Possess the Greatest Talent of All: To boost his growing record to 11-0, Farid Basharat strangled Kleydson Rodrigues in the first round with an arm-triangle choke. Even with a majority of his wins coming by stoppage, “Ferocious Farid” has notched just three finishes in the opening frame.

It’s War…People Die: In the curtain-jerker, Fairn ended up as the lone competitor from L’Hexagone to come up short. The Frenchwoman lost a clear-cut decision to Jacqueline Cavalcanti, and as a result suffered her fourth loss with the promotion. Her four defeats at 140 pounds or higher are the most of any female fighter in UFC history.

Never Say Never Again: Coming into UFC Fight Night 226, Guskov (16 fights) and Rodrigues (10 fights) had never been submitted, Ghemmouri had never been stopped with strikes (13 fights) and Loughran had never been defeated (eight fights).

The World Has Too Many Heroes: Both Gomis and Charriere also walked to the cage with tracks from French rapper Booba playing behind them. Gomis selected “DKR,” while Charriere picked “Move Lang.” The two strikers emerged victorious, scoring one knockout apiece.

It Needs a Monster: Other than a one-off use of “Salvation” for Shane Howell back in 2015, all of the previous uses of The Cranberries as a walkout artist had been for the song “Zombie.” Loughran attempted to break that trend by attempting to have “Dreams” play in the arena, only for audio to malfunction and the crowd to shower him with boos.