Tom Aspinall is one of the fastest finishers in MMA, but questions remain about his ability to go the distance, if necessary.
The undisputed heavyweight champion defends his title against Ciryl Gane in the main event of UFC 321 this Saturday in Abu Dhabi, and unsurprisingly, the topic of Aspinall’s in-cage longevity has come up more than once. At media day Wednesday, Gane and Aspinall both addressed the issue, with Gane suggesting he might strategize to extend the bout past the first two rounds.
“Everybody knows my strength,” Gane said. “Everybody knows his strengths also. I can do very well to manage my distance and go to the second round, but even in a different way, if I want, I can go very fast in the very first round. Maybe go to the deep waters with Tom Aspinall.”
During Aspinall’s current three-fight win streak, none of his opponents have made it past the 90-second mark of Round 1. In his eight UFC wins, only veteran Andrei Arlovski made it to Round 2, where he was finished shortly after. In comparison, Gane has seen the scorecards five times in 12 UFC appearances.
When Gane’s comments were presented to Aspinall during his media scrum, he reacted with amusement.
“Did he actually use the word deep waters?” Aspinall said. “Everybody who said the word ‘deep waters’ gets knocked out in the first minute. Go back and check the media that you’ve done. So I’m pretty happy with that, that’s good.”
Aspinall makes his first defense as undisputed champion following the retirement of Jon Jones, who held that status until this past June. Prior to that, Aspinall was recognized as interim heavyweight champion, and he successfully defended that title once, defeating Curtis Blaydes in 60 seconds in July 2024.
He enters UFC 321 as a considerable favorite (currently hovering around 5-to-1 on FanDuel) and public sentiment seems to be viewing this as a perfunctory defense for the 32-year-old Aspinall, who is expected to have a lengthy reign at the top of his division. Aspinall refuses to put the cart before the horse.
“I don’t think I’m better than anybody,” Aspinall said. “I think that every fight I go into I really respect my opponent, especially Ciryl. I think there’s this notion with the media and maybe the fans that Ciryl’s not very good, which is just complete bullshit. I think that he’s really, really good. He’s super talented. He’s been at the top of the division for a number of years, which is not easy to do.
“He’s been an interim champion himself. He’s obviously had two title shots for the undisputed title as well. I think the guy’s really good. I’ve took him extremely, extremely seriously. The fact that people expect it to be an easy fight, I don’t read into that at all. I’m prepared for a really, really hard fight.”
Asked multiple times Wednesday about his ability to compete in a longer fight, Aspinall eventually responded in jest, suggesting that his team’s goal now is to make sure the fight goes to a decision, one that might draw the ire of the fans at Etihad Arena.
“I think everybody’s seen me go in there and get quick finishes,” Aspinall said. “I’ve got one of the best heavyweight teams in the world if not the best heavyweight team, some of the best minds in the game, some of the best training partners in the game. We actually discussed and we’ve shown what we can do, shown how dangerous I am, and we’re going to switch it up this time and we’re going to go out there and win a boring split decision.”
“As I just said, we’re going for a five-round split decision, close fight, win,” Aspinall continued, jokingly. “Just jabs. Just jabbing your way to a win. Crowd will be booing after a couple of minutes and just maintain that slow pace for five rounds. That’s what we’re going for.”
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