After years of orbiting each other in the UFC heavyweight rankings, Ciryl Gane and Tom Aspinall will finally meet at UFC 321 on Oct. 25 in Abu Dhabi.
The fight will be the first official undisputed heavyweight title defense for the champion Aspinall after his promotion from interim status in the wake of Jon Jones’ retirement earlier this year. Long before that, however, he and Gane seemed destined to collide, with occasional finger-pointing over reasons why it’s yet to come to fruition.
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Gane’s coach Fernand Lopez has been somewhat frustrated by the saga over the years, and ultimately sees Aspinall with all the pressure — despite Gane’s previous title bids coming up short.
“The part of the whining where he’s talking about people avoiding him — do you really think in this division when you get in the top 10, and when you get to the third, the second one, the champ, you really think that people are making the choices guided by fear?” Lopez said on Tuesday’s edition of Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “That makes no sense. Do you really think that anyone in the fight game, in the top 10, would be scared?
“You can name whoever you want. Derrick Lewis, one of the best knockout artists in the division. Jairzinho [Rozenstruik], Francis Ngannou, everyone. It’s not about being scared of someone. It’s about making choices. I choose to fight with you, or I don’t choose to fight with you, and we will call you a coward, or someone who ducked a fight when the UFC gives you a major proposition, and you say no. Not because anyone calls you out. This is the part that annoys me.
“Him saying that he will retire Cyril Gane, or he will erase him from the title run, makes sense for me. This is fair enough. It’s OK. It’s hard to build the fight in total to clash a little bit. But just keep this in mind: Tom Aspinall has more pressure on him than any other fighter has experienced in the last decade. Can you imagine what will happen if Tom Aspinall does not deliver on October 25? That will be beyond an embarrassment. This is a lot of pressure that you don’t want to take on your shoulders.”
Gane and Aspinall have gone in separate directions of sorts since the divisional landscape dramatically shifted with Ngannou’s departure in 2022. While Aspinall was on the mend from his torn ACL against Curtis Blaydes, Gane went on to face Jones for the vacant title, succumbing to a first-round guillotine choke.
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Aspinall ultimately returned to score two wins, earning him the interim heavyweight title before he defended the strap in his rematch with Blaydes this time last year.
Meanwhile, Gane returned to title contention with a two-fight winning streak that included victories over Serghei Spivac and Alexander Volkov. Having watched the saga not only between Gane and Aspinall over the years, but Aspinall and Jones, Lopez has found it all more aggravating than exciting.
“It’s kind of annoying, whining around saying that … Ciryl ducked him and this and that,” Lopez said. “Everyone ducked him, he’s walking around like we’re a duck. It’s kind of annoying because generally, the few times we met with Tom, the family, everything was so respectful and smooth. Even in Paris, the guy decided to fly from London by himself.
“He decided on his own to fly to Paris and challenge Ciryl. I’m there, and then no one at the UFC asked us if we want Tom to get in the cage. No one. Everything was smooth. Then you have someone cageside, who says to you, ‘Well, I want to fight you. Can you call me out?’ Why should [Gane] do that? So Ciryl didn’t call him out. Obviously, he’s looking forward and he started to think about how to make better on his career, so he was looking forward to trying to fight Jon Jones. Because at that time, I think that Tom was fifth in the rankings, or something like that.
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“That very night, when Tom was saying that, he was kind of frustrated because he didn’t have Ciryl calling him out. At the same night, you can see them with [Michael] Bisping, with Ciryl hanging around at the afterparty. Everything was very friendly, so I don’t know if it’s frustration or what he’s doing, but I find that very annoying. I can understand what Jon Jones is saying. That sounds annoying to come back and try to tease people. The fight is happening, so let’s just come down and have this fight.”
Gane and Lopez had their eyes on Aspinall long before they started to prep for a potential matchup, dating back to when Aspinall took on their team member Alan Baudot in 2020. Despite any frustrations toward Aspinall and the bizarre nature of how the division has unfolded, Lopez understands the talent Aspinall possesses — even if he believes it may be somewhat overblown.
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“Tom is a good fighter. Don’t get me wrong,” Lopez said. “He’s one of the best, but I just want to let you know that people tend to overreact and overrate someone very quickly. Let’s really check. You guys are telling us that this guy was doing BJJ a very long time, when he was a teenager. … Did he win any ADCC? What happened?
“So, I think that we need to be a little bit careful with what we are saying. … What I just know is that if we are taking this fight, we are pretty sure that Ciryl can make this out. It’s a hard fight, but I think Ciryl has what it takes.”
