Tom Aspinall is ready to finally get his hands on Ciryl Gane.
UFC CEO Dana White announced on Tuesday that Aspinall defends his undisputed heavyweight title for the first time against Gane in the main event of UFC 321 in Abu Dhabi.
On his Instagram, Aspinall reacted to the news, and then claimed that Gane had turned down multiple fight offers to face him in the past.
“Finally we’re back after over a year hiatus,” Aspinall said. “Me and Ciryl Gane finally signed on the dotted line. This is the fourth time we’ve been matched up together. He turned me down [for a] fight early on, before we were in the rankings.
“After that, he fought [Serghei] Spivac. I said in a post-fight interview after I beat [Marcin] Tybura [that I was going to fight the winner of that fight at UFC Paris]. I went to Paris, Ciryl, unfortunately, turned down the fight on a second occasion.”
Aspinall captured the interim heavyweight title with a quick knockout of Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 295 in November 2023, then had to defend that title against Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304 in July 2024, earning another fast finish. From there, the obvious fight to make was Aspinall facing Jon Jones to unify the heavyweight title, but Jones went on to face Stipe Miocic instead this past November at UFC 309. White revealed following UFC Baku that Jones had retired and Aspinall was promoted to undisputed champion.
The heavyweight division can finally move on with Jones out of the picture currently, and Aspinall is ready to do that. The U.K. standout says that his first interim title defense was originally supposed to be against Gane, and not Blaydes.
“The original opponent was Ciryl Gane. Unfortunately, Ciryl was busy that date [and] was filming his Netflix series. … And now we are matched up for the 25th of October, Abu Dhabi. Me and Ciryl, the fourth attempt is here, and this is Ciryl’s third title shot.
“We are going to try and get rid of Ciryl Gane from the title picture for good.”
