Ciryl Gane isn’t interested in facing Tom Aspinall next.
The Heavyweight division of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has seen an emergence of rising talent, looking to stake their claims as future world champions. France’s Gane has been as close to the pinnacle of the sport as possible without holding the title. Going forward, the one-time interim titlist has only one goal in mind.
Gane, 33, got back in the win column with a second round technical knockout of Sergey Spivac (watch highlights) at UFC Paris earlier this month (Sept. 2, 2023). Having only suffered defeat twice (12-2), which were both in bids for undisputed gold, “Bon Gammin” now only wants to fight up rather than down as he just did.
“I know a lot of people talk about [Tom] Aspinall [as my next fight] but this doesn’t make sense for me,” Gane told The MMA Hour. “My management did a really great job with all of my career, that’s why it really was so fast and now I just want to go to the belt. I’m No. 1 contender, he is No. 4. It doesn’t make sense. I just want to go [up] now. I did it already. It was a big risk against this wrestler. So now I don’t want to have another risk. I want to take a risk for something big.
“I’m still here for a long time so we’re gonna have time for Tom Aspinall,” he continued. “It’s for sure gonna come. So no worries for the other people, we gonna do this fight. But now my fight is not this one. I just want the belt and I want to go to the belt.”
Aspinall was in attendance for Gane’s big rebound performance against Spivac. The Brit also recently got back in the winners’ circle, defeating Marcin Tybura via an impressive first round technical knockout at UFC London (watch highlights) in July 2023.