UFC champion Tom Aspinall criticises Ciryl Gane for call-out after fight refusal

02 December 2023 , 11:00

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UFC champion Tom Aspinall criticises Ciryl Gane for call-out after fight refusal

Tom Aspinall has explained why he wasn't surprised to hear Ciryl Gane calling him out after winning the interim UFC heavyweight title.

Aspinall knocked out Sergei Pavlovich in just 69-seconds to win the interim belt at UFC 295 in New York last month. Despite seemingly being next in line for Jon Jones, the Brit will have to wait as UFC boss Dana White has insisted that Stipe Miocic is next in line for the undisputed champion.

Gane, who previously held the belt Aspinall now has, played down a fight against the Brit just a few months ago as he was ranked above him. Gane changed his opinion just moments after Aspinall's win by tweeting: "Congratulations, Tom. You are now the champion and become the one being pursued, and I am the hunter. See you soon"

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Aspinall told Mirror Fighting of his rival's call out: “It’s pretty ironic, he loves trying to do the most little amount of work to get the biggest rewards possible. I understand, because I do as well but it’s very strange that I called him out for a long time and then as soon as I get the title he wants to fight me. We’ll see what happens, we are going to fight each other one day so it’s all good.

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"I think every fight is a tough fight at the minute. If you look at the rankings, I am ranked number one in the world but if you are top 10 in the world then you are really really good. We can all beat each other on any given day. There is not that much between us all, we have tiny gloves and are massive guys. Anything can happen at anytime."

Jones was forced out of his heavyweight title defence against Miocic because of a pectoral injury and isn't expected to return until the summer. Aspinall doesn't want to sit on the sidelines and wait to face the winner of that fight, so he is calling for a defence of his interim belt against Miocic.

“I’m getting some hate from people saying ‘You shouldn’t do this, you should be fighting contenders’. I’ve got all the time in the world to fight contenders, I’ve got another 10 years left to do that. Right now I’ve got a really short window against two guys who people are saying are the best of all time, give me my shot," he added.

Harry Davies