The octagon is returning to France this weekend for a second straight year with UFC Paris. After some lineup shuffling earlier in the week, the card currently has eleven bouts scheduled to take place and will be headlined by a heavyweight clash between ranked opponents Cyril Gane and Serghei Spivac. Let’s take a closer look at how this fight could potentially play out:

Gane is 11-2 with eight wins coming via stoppage and he will be attempting to bounce back from a rough loss to Jon Jones at UFC 285 back in March for the vacant UFC Heavyweight title. Both of Gane’s career losses have come in UFC title fights, with the first coming against former champ Francis Ngannou. Gane is an extremely talented kickboxer with excellent striking overall and he has great movement on the feet. While he is one of the better technical strikers in the heavyweight division, Gane has struggled a bit with his wrestling and takedown defense in both of his losses, and that’s very likely to be tested again in this matchup as well.

Spivac is 16-3 with 14 stoppage wins and he enters the biggest matchup of his career on a three-fight winning streak. Spivac is a decent striker on the feet with average power for the division and he definitely prefers to get fights to the ground as early and often as possible. Spivac lands an average of 5.05 takedowns per 15 minutes in the UFC and he has landed six in each of his last two fights. When Spivac is able to get an opponent to the ground and keep them there, he quickly shows why is nicknamed the “Polar Bear”, possessing a devastating blend of ground and pound to go along with solid submission skills for the division.

This fight will most likely come down to who is able to dictate where the matchup takes place. If Gane is able to stay standing and defend Spivac’s takedown attempts and/or get back to his feet quickly, he will be the far superior striker and should be able to pick his opponent apart from range. Meanwhile, if Spivac is able to successfully land takedowns and keep Gane on the ground, it could be another rough night for Gane similar to the Jones and Ngannou fights.

Ultimately, I think Gane understands the importance of this matchup, and that he has also put the proper amount of work into improving his wrestling and grappling deficiencies since his loss to Jones in March. He was back in the gym working his grappling the week after that fight and he has also worked with a top-level French judo practitioner as well to prepare for this matchup. As long as Gane can keep the fight mostly on the feet, I expect him to land the more damaging blows and to get Spivac out via KO/TKO sometime during the first three rounds of the fight.

Pick: Cyril Gane (-170 ML)

Favorite Prop Bets: Cyril Gane by KO/TKO or Submission (-120), Cyril Gane by KO/TKO in R1/2/3 (+160)

All betting lines are currently listed via FanDuel Sportsbook