Fans Are Still Arguing About Ciryl Gane's Finish — and Dominick Cruz Says He's No Cheater
Event: UFC 334: Gane vs. Hokit — November 14, 2026, Madison Square Garden, New York
Image credit: UFC.com
Ciryl Gane has not fought since becoming heavyweight champion, but the argument about how he fights never left. This week it came roaring back, thanks to an old finish, a viral reel, and a former champion who has heard enough. [1][2]
The UFC's own clip of Gane finishing Tai Tuivasa at UFC Paris passed 200,000 likes after it resurfaced on October 28. [1] The finish itself is not in dispute. What fans are fighting about, in the comments, is whether it was clean.
The reel that restarted the argument
Watch the clip and you see the sequence that split the comments in two. Gane pressures Tuivasa against the fence, lands a clean right hand, drops him, and follows up on the ground until the referee steps in. [1]
One side of the comments calls the finishing strikes hammer fists to the back of the head, and calls Gane dirty. The other side says the strikes landed legally in a scramble, or incidentally as Tuivasa moved. [1] It is the same argument that has followed Gane for years, just with a fresh clip and a fresh audience.
The timing is not an accident. Gane defends his title against Josh Hokit at UFC 334 on November 14 at Madison Square Garden, and every old clip now gets watched through that lens. [2]
What Cruz actually said
Dominick Cruz weighed in on his Love & War podcast, and his take was blunt: Gane is not a cheater. [2][3]
"This is my take on Ciryl Gane poking eyes… I always said, if you can poke me in my f—— eye, I'm doing something wrong," Cruz said. "Like trying to hit my head is so f—— hard, if you could poke me in the eye, that's my problem. So, we [he and TJ Dillashaw] agree on that and I think that's why he's not a cheater." [2]
TJ Dillashaw backed him up, arguing that Gane was not going for illegal shots on purpose and that his opponents' head movement played a part in where strikes landed. [3] Cruz added that his own movement-heavy style meant he was rarely poked in the eye during his career — his point being that getting caught is partly on the fighter getting hit. [2]
The defence matters because the accusations are not new. Gane became champion after Tom Aspinall had to vacate the title following the eye-poke injury at UFC 321, and the controversy over strikes to the back of the head in the Pereira fight added more fuel. [3] Two of Gane's recent opponents have accused him of cheating, and Cruz's intervention is the most high-profile pushback yet. [2][3]
Why November 14 is the real test
Strip away the comment-section war, and this is what the debate is really about: whether the champion's style is brilliant or bent. Hokit gets to answer that question in the cage. Our full breakdown of the matchup is in the Gane vs. Hokit head-to-head preview, and Alex Pereira has already picked Gane to keep the belt — "unless he really changes." The full card is on our UFC 334 event page.
If Gane wins clean at Madison Square Garden, the "cheater" tag gets a lot harder to stick. If the fight ends in another controversy, the reel that started this week's argument will not be the last one.
Sources
1. UFC (@ufc) on Instagram — Ciryl Gane finishes Tai Tuivasa at UFC Paris (200,000 likes, 950 comments, posted October 28, 2026)
2. Bloody Elbow — Dominick Cruz defends Ciryl Gane by arguing it's the fighter's fault if they get poked in the eye
3. MMA Sucka — UFC Veterans Defend Ciryl Gane Amid Eye-Poke Controversy, Reject Claims of Deliberate Cheating
Fight data compiled from public statistical sources (ufcstats.com) and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). OctagonStats is an independent database, not affiliated with UFC / TKO Group.