Jones, Gane to Meet for Vacant Heavyweight Title at UFC 285; Ngannou a Free Agent

There’s some chaos atop the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s heavyweight division.

UFC president Dana White announced on Saturday that Jon Jones and Ciryl Gane will square off for the vacant heavyweight belt in the UFC 285 main event on March 4. He also revealed that Francis Ngannou has been released from his UFC contract and is now a free agent. White said that the promotion and Ngannou were unable to come to terms on a deal following his victory over Gane at UFC 270 in January 2022. Ngannou has been on the mend after undergoing knee surgery after that fight, and he also expressed displeasure with his contract following his last Octagon appearance.

“We’ve been negotiating with (Ngannou) for more than two years,” White said. “We offered Francis a deal that would’ve made him the highest paid heavyweight in the history of the company – more than [Brock] Lesnar, more than anybody, and he turned the deal down.”

Jones has been on the sidellines since defending his light heavyweight crown in a victory over Dominick Reyes at UFC 247 on Feb. 8, 2020. Now 35 years old, “Bones” is regarded as one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters in MMA history with two separate 205-pound title reigns and a 20-1 record in UFC competition. The only blemishes on Jones’ record are a disqualification loss to Matt Hamill in 2010 and a no contest against Daniel Cormier in 2017 that came as a result of a failed drug test. The New York native owns notable wins over the likes of Thiago Santos, Alexander Gustafsson (twice), Cormier, Glover Teixeira, Chael Sonnen, Vitor Belfort, Lyoto Machida, Quinton Jackson, Rashad Evans, Ryan Bader and Mauricio Rua.

Gane, meanwhile, is a former interim heavyweight champion whose only loss in 12 professional appearances came in the aforementioned fight against Ngannou. The Frenchman rebounded from that defeat in his last outing, as he knocked out Tai Tuivasa in Round 3 of the UFC Fight Night 209 main event on Sept. 3. “Bon Gamin” owns other significant wins against the likes of Derrick Lewis, Alexander Volkov, Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Junior dos Santos.

UFC 285 takes place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and is also expected to include a welterweight duel between Shavkat Rakhmonov and Geoff Neal as well as a middleweight clash between Derek Brunson and Dricuss Du Plessis.