ON JANUARY 22, FRANCIS NGANNOU WILL MAKE HIS MAIDEN CHAMPIONSHIP DEFENSE AGAINST CIRYL GANE

In March, Ngannou, a French-Cameroonian, defeated American Stipe Miocic to claim the championship.

For the time being, interim champ Gane is the only person other than Miocic to defeat Ngannou in the cage. He defeated Derrick Lewis by third-round TKO.

There is footage of a young Ngannou and Gane sparring under Fernand Lopez's supervision while they were both at the MMA Factory in Paris.

When Ngannou lost to Miocic in the first title fight, he severed ways with everyone at his old camp, including Gane.

Although they've remained civil since then, the two will inevitably cross paths once again as they work to put the past behind them once and for all.

“It’s badass,” UFC president Dana White said.

“What I love is when we were going into this fight, I was telling everybody and it’s absolutely true.

"You have two of the best possible heavyweights in the world fighting each other.

"You have the guy who beat Francis Ngannou, right? And a guy who is undefeated with the whole backstory that you just said, right?

"This fight got a lot of heat. It created a lot of interest. Ciryl Gane goes out tonight. He looks incredible.

“Like he said earlier, we’ve been working a long time on getting France.

“France is open now and we just got a TV deal in France.

"Here we are. What you always want to do when you either build fighters or build fights or put on fights is you want to have the best possible guys fighting each other that you possibly can”