Tom Aspinall is finally ready to get his Ciryl Gane.
UFC CEO Dana White announced Tuesday that Aspinall will defend his uncontroversial heavyweight title against Gane for the first time in the main event of UFC 321 at Abu Dhabi.
On his Instagram, Aspinall responded to the news and later claimed that Gane had rejected multiple fight offers to face him in the past.
“Finally, I’m back after over a year off,” Aspinall said. “Me and Ciryl Gane finally signed on the dotted line. This is the fourth time we’ve matched together. He turned me down (for a) before joining the rankings, and fought early on.
“After that, he fought (Serghei) Spivac. I said in a postwar interview after beating (Marcin) Tybura (I was going to fight the winner of that fight at UFC Paris). Unfortunately, I went to Ciryl.
Aspinall won the interim heavyweight title in November 2023 with Sergei Pavlovich’s quick knockout at UFC 295 and had to defend that title against Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304 in July 2024. From there, the obvious fight was faced with John Jones to unify the heavyweight title, but Jones faced Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 instead of this November. White revealed that Jones has retired following UFC Baku and Aspinel has been promoted to the indisputable champion.
The heavyweight division finally has Jones out of the photo, and Aspinall is ready to do it. The British standout says his first interim title defense was originally supposed to oppose Gain, not Braides.
“My original opponent was Ciryl Gane. Unfortunately, Ciryl was filming the Netflix series for that date (and) and now we’re here on October 25th, Abu Dhabi, Me and Cyril, my fourth attempt.
“We’re trying to remove Ciryl Gane from the title photo.”