Tom Aspinall is as familiar with Ciryl Gane's oft-controversial fighting tactics as anyone.
After all, the UFC’s reigning heavyweight champion is still recovering from multiple eye surgeries thanks to illegal eye pokes (pokes, plural) he received from Gane during their title fight this past October in the UFC 321 main event.
That fight ended in a no-contest, and ever since then, Aspinall has been on the slow and steady road to recovery. He had severely blurred or limited vision in both eyes for months following his fight with Gane and only recently returned to the gym to resume training after recovering from double-eye surgery in February.
With Aspinall out indefinitely, the UFC introduced an interim heavyweight title and over the weekend, at UFC Freedom 250 on the White House lawn, Gane became the interim champ when he stopped former two-weight champ Alex Pereira.
Gane stunned Pereira with a jab in the second round, then began walloping his opponent with punches and elbows, several of which clearly landed directly to the back of Pereira’s head.
Strikes to the back of the head are illegal in mixed martial arts, however referee Herb Dean did not intervene or even warn Gane about the strikes and the fight was called off moments later. Gane’s hand was raised via technical knockout.
Aspinall was watching the fight and posted a video of himself reacting to Gane’s win.
The 33-year-old from England commented that he thought Pereira looked stiff and was “looking even slower than he does at light-heavyweight, and he’s not the fastest light-heavyweight to be honest.”
Pereira was a former two-weight kickboxing world champion who began his UFC career at 185 pounds (middleweight) before moving up to 205 pounds (light-heavyweight), winning the title in each weight class. He made the decision to move to heavyweight and weighed 251 pounds the day before his debut versus Gane. Pereira was three pounds heavier than Gane, who has competed at heavyweight his entire career.
“He’s just waiting. He’s not setting anything up, though, he’s just stood there right in front of him,” Aspinall said of Pereira. “Ciryl’s moving around really nice, doing the right thing.”
Aspinall watched as Gane landed hard hammerfists and elbows repeatedly until the fight was stopped. The Brit analyzed Gane’s performance and commented on the multiple strikes that landed on the back of Pereira’s head.
“He looked good. I have to watch that again. It looked like there was a lot of illegal elbows going on, and illegal punches, but generally, he looked good,” Aspinall said of Gane in a video posted to his YouTube channel. “(Pereira) just didn’t really seem to get going, did he? He just looked like a bit stiff and reserved from the beginning. I don’t know if he was trying to feel his way into the fight or what, but he just never seemed to. He looked slow.”
During Gane’s post-fight interview, the 36-year-old from France said he knows what comes next — a rematch and title unification bout with Aspinall.
The UFC is returning to Paris for its annual September Fight Night event and Gane suggested he and Aspinall should fight there.
“Paris in September, eh? I’ll do that,” Aspinall responded. “Yeah, I’ll do that. Let me know. I don’t mind. I’ll go to Paris. Let me know. I’ll be there.”
The UFC’s heavyweight title has been splintered many times throughout the organization’s history, but specifically within the past five years.
Francis Ngannou, Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall are the UFC's only undisputed heavyweight champs since 2021, but blockbuster matchups between any of the three of them never materialized.
Ironically, Gane is now a two-time interim champion who has fought all three of Ngannou, Jones and Aspinall within the past 4.5 years. He lost a five-round decision to Ngannou in 2022, was submitted by Jones in 2023 and was lucky not to get disqualified against Aspinall in 2025.
Dana White was asked following the UFC Freedom 250 event about the potential of Aspinall vs. Gane 2 taking place in France later this year, but the UFC president said he hadn't even begun thinking about that rematch or where and when it could take place.
