Tom Aspinall doesn’t want to hear Ciryl Gane’s excuses.
The two UFC heavyweights have been at odds with one another for years, but tensions recently escalated when Aspinall claimed that Gane was offered the chance to challenge for the Englishman’s interim heavyweight title on July 27 at UFC 304 but declined to instead film a movie. It didn’t take long for Gane to push back at Aspinall’s suggestions.
“He only accepts my fights when I cannot,” Gane said on a recent Twitch stream, captured by French outlet La Sueur. “He likes to say that I refuse him, but the truth is that I have already called him out on the networks. Now that he is above me in the rankings, he allows himself to say, ‘No, no, no, no.’ No problem, we’ll meet each other soon.”
Aspinall, 31, is instead set to defend his interim belt in a rematch against Curtis Blaydes in UFC 304’s co-main event, and he bristled at Gane’s words when asked on The MMA Hour.
“I don’t think that’s very accurate,” Aspinall said of Gane. “And I think what people need to understand is the UFC, and I’m sure Curtis is aware of this, the UFC didn’t want me to fight Curtis. They wanted me to fight Ciryl, and Ciryl didn’t want to. And I don’t know what’s going on with his schedule, I have no idea. The guy’s living his own life, he’s doing his acting thing. If that’s what makes him happy and that’s what he wants to do, I completely respect it. But let’s not act like you wanted to fight me, because it isn’t accurate.
“My schedule, my personal schedule, I’m trying to fight people. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to fight as many people as I can in a calendar year in the sport of MMA, and rack up as many wins and get as much money as I possibly can get while I’m still fighting. Now, that’s my goal. I ain’t interested in movies, I ain’t interested in whatever. I ain’t interested in cruising about on a yacht and going to this freaking party in Vegas and doing a movie and all this other stuff. I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in fighting people.
“So if [Gane said no] because of something else, like a movie or whatever, I don’t know, that’s not my problem. I’m ready to fight. I want to fight people. I’m here to get in the cage with four-ounce gloves on, with a shirt off, in an arena, fighting another top-level guy, and let’s see who the guy is in this next 25 minutes. That’s what really interests me. And if that doesn’t interest you, that’s fine. That’s fine, man. Do whatever the hell you want.”
Aspinall is currently MMA Fighting’s No. 1 ranked heavyweight in the world and No. 12 ranked pound-for-pound fighter. He is 7-1 under the UFC umbrella, having picked up destructive stoppage wins over ranked foes Sergei Pavlovich, Marcin Tybura, Alexander Volkov, Serghei Spivac, among others. Aspinall’s lone UFC loss came in a 15-second outing against Blaydes in 2022 that ended prematurely when Aspinall suffered a knee injury.
Aspinall previously accused Gane of turning down multiple fights against top contenders.
“He’s dismissed me on multiple occasions and I’m not the first guy he’s dismissed, I’m not the first guy that he’s ducked,” Aspinall told MMA Fighting in April. “It’s out there for people to see. The reason that I got the Pavlovich fight [at UFC 295] is because Ciryl didn’t want it. So he ducked Pavlovich, he then ducked Curtis Blaydes — Curtis Blaydes has been on record saying that. ... I asked for him years ago, [he] didn’t want it then. I then asked for him in Paris. They flew me over, we tried to make that fight, he didn’t want it then.”
Gane is currently set to face Alexander Volkov in a rematch on October 26 at UFC 308.
Considering the history between Aspinall and Gane and the force the Englishman is up against in Blaydes, Aspinall isn’t wasting any more time worrying about Gane’s whims.
“What I want to do, me personally, for the next few years at least of my life, is I want to do that — I want to take my shirt off and stick some gloves on, not know who’s going to win, and let’s find out,” Aspinall said. “There’s me and you in this arena now, there’s 25,000 people watching it, there’s a referee between us, and there’s millions of people watching in the world — let’s find out now, right now, in front of these people. That’s what I’m interested in.
“What [Gane is] interested in, go and do it, bro — but let’s not act like you want to [fight me], because you don’t at the moment. Maybe we will in the future. That’s great. If we do, we’ll do it, absolutely. I want to fight anybody. I’ll fight anybody. But I was ready to fight. That’s all I’m saying. I was ready to fight him if he wanted it.”
