The UFC 321 main event is official.
For the UFC Heavyweight Championship, Tom Aspinall’s first title defense will be against Ciryl Gane. This comes after months of Tom Aspinall - who was the UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion - was originally in negotiation to fight Jon Jones for the prestigious belt, but Jones shocked the MMA world by announcing his retirement instead.
This will be the first Heavyweight title fight since November 2024. Aspinall expressed his excitement over finally moving the 206-pound division forward.
“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 hasn’t lost a fight in three years. Even then, Aspinall managed to avenge his previous loss to Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304. Since joining the UFC in 2020, the 32-year-old has lost one fight within the promotion. In Aspinall’s last six fights, five of them came by way of submission or TKO. Aspinall’s professional record currently stands at 15 wins and 3 losses.
This isn’t Gane’s first crack at the UFC Heavyweight title. In fact, Gane is a former UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion. Despite his setback against Jon Jones, Gane has managed to pick up two big wins against Serghei Spivac and Alexander Volkov. Currently, Gane’s professional record is 13 wins and 2 losses.
Gane hasn’t reacted to Aspinall’s statement as of this writing. He likely doesn’t care as Gane isn’t much of a trash talker. Thus far, that’s the only bout confirmed for the upcoming UFC Card. As always, we’ll keep you posted when more fights are confirmed for the November pay-per-view. It's great that the heavyweight division is finally able to move on and hopefully, Gane and Aspinall can pull out an excellent showing that highlights the best parts of the heavyweight division.