Aspinall chatted with TNT Sports after returning home from UFC 317 in Las Vegas, and revealed to the UK’s official UFC broadcaster that he has a fight booked, and he’s just waiting for the official announcement to be made.
“I now have a fight, which will get announced – unfortunately that’s not my job,” he said.
“But at least we’ve got a date, we’ve got an opponent to work towards. Everything’s good. Very happy with that. I can finally get my career going again.”
The heavyweight division has stalled somewhat since Jon Jones defeated Ciryl Gane to capture the title back in March 2023. A delayed “legacy fight” with ageing former champion Stipe Miocic didn’t materialize until November 2024, and despite UFC president Dana White’s assertion that the winner of that fight should “absolutely” fight interim champion Aspinall next, that fight never came to fruition.
After more than seven months of stagnation at the top of the division, White finally announced that Jones had decided to retire, and that Aspinall had been promoted from interim champion to undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
Aspinall immediately stated his intention to kickstart the heavyweight division once again and become an active, fighting champion.
Following Aspinall’s promotion to undisputed champ, the conjecture began over who his first undisputed title defense would be against. That discussion was made trickier by Aspinall’s path to interim title success, with the Englishman already holding victories over the division’s number 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8-ranked contenders.
France’s Gane sits as the top-ranked contender, but he didn’t appear too keen to face the Brit earlier in his career. Now Aspinall has the belt, that stance may be different now.
“We’ve been supposed to fight each other a couple of times before,” Aspinall explained.
“He’s a little bit older and at least he started his career in the UFC a little bit earlier than I did.
“So when I was in, it was always like I was trying to fight him because he was just a little bit above me all the time.
“The fight never materialized. He turned me down a couple of times, to be honest. I don’t think he wanted to fight down the rankings. I don’t know.
“I get it. I’m a bad fight for everybody. It’s a risky fight for everybody. So I understand why you wouldn’t want to fight down the rankings as well but I’m sure that fight’s going to happen sooner or later.”
Another contender is Brazilian submission ace Jailton Almeida, who many have pegged as a potential title challenger. It’s a matchup that would provide a different kind of test to most challengers at heavyweight, and it’s one that Aspinall clearly likes the sound of.
“I like it,” he admitted.
“I think he’s good. He took a loss to (Curtis) Blaydes, but he looks good. There’s not a lot of good heavyweights around. He looks decent.”
Arguably the best UFC heavyweight not named Tom Aspinall is Alexander Volkov, who Aspinall finished via first-round straight armbar back in March 2022 in his first UFC main event.
Since that loss to Aspinall, Volkov won four in a row, defeating Jairzinho Rozenstruik, Alexandr Romanov, Tai Tuivasa and Sergei Pavlovich, before losing a split decision to Gane in a fight many, including Aspinall, thought the Russian contender had actually deserved to win.
“I actually thought he won the Gane fight as well, to be honest,” he said.
“Just – but I think he won it. To be honest, I knew how good Volkov was when I fight him. He’s really good. He is really, really good. I think he has improved since then. I think we probably will rematch at some point. I would imagine so. I wasn’t very good then in comparison to what I’m like now, so if we do rematch, that would be interesting.
“Don’t get me wrong, there’s never any two fights that are the same but I think if you compare me now to me three or four years ago, whenever that fight was, you’ve got to remember that was my first main event as well. That was my first time fighting in front of a crowd as well. That was after the pandemic. Way, way different now than it was then.
“I think that fight will happen again, I would imagine. I think Volkov’s going to keep winning. I think that fight will happen at some point for sure.”
Gane, Almeida and Volkov appear to be the top three contenders in the heavyweight division, but there could be other options, too, including a potential matchup with former middleweight and light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira, should the Brazilian knockout artist opt to make the leap up another division to challenge for the heavyweight title.
“There’s a few guys I’ve not fought,” he said.
“I won’t mention any names because they’ll just cut it up and post it but the guys that I’ve not fought know who they are and they’re the guys that I want to fight.”
