Tom Aspinall is focused on one man at the moment.
The Undisputed Heavyweight Champion hasn’t had an easy road getting to where he is now. The 32-year-old won the Interim Heavyweight title at UFC 293 due to Jon Jones getting injured. Aspinall successfully defended the belt against Curtis Blaydes and Jones had come off a strong victory over Stipe Miocic.
But Jones clearly wasn’t that interested in fighting Tom. In fact, he made it known that he didn’t have much interest in the fight. However, Aspinall was the Interim Heavyweight Champion, so the bout had to happen at some point.
For nearly two years, Dana White bent over backwards trying to get this fight to come to fruition, but out of nowhere, the 38-year-old retired, officially crowning Aspinall as the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion. A couple of weeks later, Aspinall’s first title defense was booked as he’s scheduled to fight Ciryl Gane at UFC 321.
Jones has since unretired and is officially back in the USADA testing pool. Aspinall was asked if he was interested in fight the former heavyweight champ and he’s only focused one man right now.
“Ciryl’s the guy I’m fighting, so he’s the biggest test right now,” Aspinall said during the UFC 321 press conference. “Jon Jones is retired, so I don’t really have much to say on that, to be honest. I’m fighting this guy and this guy’s really good, so I’ll be as ready as I can be.”
Tom Aspinall shrugging off Jones at the moment isn’t a surprise since he can’t look past a man that has a good chance of beating him in October. The UFC Champion talks about the opportunity to fight Ganes and why now is the perfect time to step into the ring against the fellow heavyweight.
“I think the biggest difference is we’re both better,” Aspinall said. “We’re both better now than we were a few years ago. We both have a lot more experience. Ciryl’s had two title shots already, I’ve defended an interim title and now hold the undisputed title, so I think this fight’s going to be better and I think it’s pretty rare that you see any guys of our size that move like we do.
“I think this is really like the new age of the heavyweights and people are really going to start to see the difference between guys like us and guys 10 years ago.”
Do you think Tom Aspinall can beat Ciryl Gane at UFC 321?