Brown pours cold water on Gane-Howkit title fight: 'They're fighting for second place'

Matt Brown questions UFC heavyweight legitimacy

'True uncrowned champion is Aspinall, Jones or Ngannou'

UFC heavyweight champion Ciryl Gane (left) and his first title defense opponent, Josh Howkit. [Getty Images]

With the UFC heavyweight title fight between Ciryl Gane (36, France) and Josh Howkit (29, United States) set for Sunday (Korean Standard Time), a sharp rebuke has emerged: whoever wins, the argument goes, cannot truly be called the world's best heavyweight.

MMA Fighting, a US combat sports outlet, reported Wednesday that former UFC welterweight Matt Brown (45, United States) criticized the UFC 334 heavyweight title bout on the outlet's podcast "The Fighter vs. The Writer."

Brown said the true uncrowned champion is one of Jon Jones, Francis Ngannou or Tom Aspinall. "It's just a shame we can't see those three fight each other," he added.

He then turned his attention to the Gane-Howkit matchup. "Unfortunately, they're fighting for second place," Brown said. "That's the reality. It'll be a great fight, but there's a lot of room for debate about the legitimacy of the championship."

Heavyweight champion Gane makes his first title defense against Howkit in the UFC 334 main event at Madison Square Garden in New York. Gane holds a career record of 14 wins, 2 losses and 1 no-contest. Challenger Howkit is undefeated in 10 fights and secured a title shot roughly a year after his UFC debut.

The circumstances surrounding the heavyweight title have been complicated. Then-champion Aspinall suffered an eye poke in his title fight against Gane in October last year, and the bout was ruled a no-contest. Aspinall reinjured his right eye during recovery and ultimately relinquished the title in September this year. Interim champion Gane was then elevated to undisputed champion.

Gane had captured the interim title by defeating Alex Pereira at a UFC event held at the White House in June. That fight, however, was also clouded by controversy over an alleged strike to the back of the head.

Former UFC heavyweight champions, from left: Tom Aspinall, Jon Jones and Francis Ngannou. [Getty Images]

Earlier, Gane lost a decision to Francis Ngannou in 2022 and was submitted in the first round by Jon Jones in a 2023 heavyweight title fight. He was decisively beaten by the fighters now considered the division's elite, failing to show championship-caliber ability against them.

Brown cited that history in rating Aspinall as the division's de facto champion. "Aspinall is the uncrowned champion who never lost the title," Brown said. "If he comes back, I think he has a better chance of beating Howkit than Gane does."

Brown also drew a comparison to the NFL. "It feels like they put the wild-card teams in the Super Bowl," he said, criticizing the title fight as a poor showcase for determining the division's true best.

However, Brown acknowledged that a Howkit victory could be the more commercially attractive outcome for the UFC. "The ideal scenario for the UFC is Howkit winning," he said, noting that Gane carries multiple burdens — the loss to Jones, the eye-poke controversy against Aspinall and the disputed finish against Pereira.

Howkit joined the UFC last year and rattled off four straight wins. This year he defeated Curtis Blaydes and then stopped Derrick Lewis by TKO in the second round at the White House event in June, rapidly emerging as a title contender.

yjc@heraldcorp.com