{"id":18445,"date":"2025-07-24T11:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T11:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/18445\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T11:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T11:58:07","slug":"date-set-for-tom-aspinalls-first-heavyweight-title-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/18445\/","title":{"rendered":"Date set for Tom Aspinall’s first heavyweight title defence"},"content":{"rendered":"

The date for Tom Aspinall’s next UFC fight has been set, which will see him defend the undisputed heavyweight title for the first time.<\/p>\n

The UFC announced on Tuesday that Aspinall will return to the octagon on October 25 against France’s Ciryl Gane, at UFC 321, in Abu Dhabi.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After spending 19 months as interim belt holder, Aspinall was upgraded to undisputed champion of the heavyweight division last month after UFC icon, Jon Jones, retired from fighting.<\/a><\/p>\n

The decision from Jones meant Aspinall was crowned Britain’s first ever UFC heavyweight champion.<\/p>\n

Aspinall had been keen to fight Jones but the American never committed to defending his heavyweight title against the Brit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

UFC 321 will mark Aspinall’s first outing in the octagon since last July, when he defeated Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304 to avenge his 2022 loss to the American.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcf2\u00a0Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp<\/a><\/p>\n

His first round knockout victory over Blaydes in Manchester saw him extend his UFC fighting record to 8-1, with all but one of his wins coming inside the opening round.<\/p>\n

For Gane, the bout in October will be his third attempt at winning the undisputed UFC heavyweight title, after coming up short in past losses to Jones and Francis Ngannou.<\/p>\n

Following the announcement of UFC 321, Aspinall gave his reaction on his YouTube channel, saying: “I believe I am the best heavyweight in the world, but I want to show everyone that I’m the best heavyweight in the world.”<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old from Salford is also keen to remove Gane from the heavyweight title picture for good, adding: “Ciryl Gane has lost two title shots and I want to give him his third title shot loss and get him out of there.”<\/p>\n

In addition to announcing the Abu Dhabi card, the UFC announced Magomed Ankalaev will defend his light-heavyweight title against Alex Pereira at UFC 320 on October 4.<\/p>\n

The contest in Las Vegas will be a rematch of the fight from March, when Ankalaev dethroned previous belt holder, Pereira, via unanimous decision.<\/p>\n

MMA news and related links<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The date for Tom Aspinall’s next UFC fight has been set, which will see him defend the undisputed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-18445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}