Tom Aspinall thinks UFC has a plan for the next heavyweight title contender.
Aspinall is set to put the UFC Heavyweight Championship at stake against Ciryl Gane on Saturday. Aspinall’s first fight as the undisputed heavyweight titleholder will headline UFC 321 in Abu Dhabi. It’ll be Gane’s third undisputed UFC title fight. While he held the interim UFC Heavyweight Championship, Gane has yet to earn undisputed status.
If Aspinall thwarts the challenge of “Bon Gamin,” then he thinks he’ll have a pretty good sense of who his next challenger would be. He revealed his prediction for the next No. 1 contender during a UFC 321 media day session (via MMAJunkie).
“I don’t know, whatever the UFC wants to do, (but) it’s pretty obvious that they’re going to do winner vs. winner of me vs Gane, and Volkov vs. Almeida,” Aspinall told reporters at the UFC 321 media day on Wednesday. “Not like a tag team match. The winner of us vs. the winner of them, that’s what I think it’s going to be next for the heavyweight title.”
While Aspinall isn’t one to lack confidence, he isn’t making any promises in terms of how long his reign at the top of the heavyweight mountain will last.
“As far as being a long-reigning heavyweight champion and stuff like that, we’ll just see how it goes, but I am confident I am the best fighter in the division, but it’s heavyweight MMA,” Aspinall said. “You never know what’s going to happen.”
The heavyweight division is known to have some heavy hitters, and Gane will hope to land something big enough to back Aspinall up. If not, then the champion’s speed and punching power might overcome the challenger.
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