Tom Aspinall highlights who he will make his first undisputed title defense against as he vows to defend at least ‘twice a year’
With Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic both set to retire following their UFC 309 heavyweight title fight, interim champion Tom Aspinall has already started planning how his undisputed title reign will look.
After defending his interim UFC heavyweight title this past July, Tom Aspinall vowed that he wouldn’t do so again and will instead wait for the culmination of UFC 309’s main event between Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic.
Tom Aspinall highlights who his first title challenger will be
With ‘Bones’ Jones recently revealing that UFC 309 will likely be the final fight of his career, and Miocic having previously hinted at the same, Aspinall has already began to look down the rankings at potential challengers.
One opponent that was previously offered to Aspinall, is Ciryl Gane, but because he was busy filming for a movie in France, ‘Bon Gamin’ turned down the interim title fight.
The Frenchman was scheduled to take on Alexander Volkov who is currently riding an impressive four fight win streak, on October 26, however the bout has been re-scheduled as Volkov suffered an injury.
With the two top heavyweights scheduled to matchup, Aspinall believes he will end up getting upgraded to the undisputed champion following UFC 309, and his first title defense will come against either Volkov or Gane.
The Russian has gone undefeated since losing to the Brit back in 2022, and he will be hoping to be able to earn a rematch with the now champion.
“If them two retire which I think is quite likely, but I don’t know, you never know, I think it only makes sense to fight the winner of Volkov and Gane,” Aspinall admitted in a video on his YouTube channel.
Aspinall vows to defend the title at least twice a year
The heavyweight division has unfortunately hit a lull over the past few years, since Francis Ngannou left the promotion.
The standing champion’s haven’t been the most active and ongoing rivalries between Miocic and Daniel Cormier led to the division being relatively held up towards the top.
Without getting too ahead of himself, Aspinall vowed that when he becomes the undisputed champion, he will look to defend the title at least twice a year, injecting some activity back into the division which has lacked it.
“There’s loads of challengers, there’s loads, but as far as activity I think fighting twice a year is good as a champion, I think realistically that’s decent,” the interim champion finished.
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