{"id":232619,"date":"2025-10-22T14:10:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/232619\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T14:10:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:10:14","slug":"tom-aspinall-responds-to-ciryl-ganes-plan-to-take-him-to-deep-waters-at-ufc-321","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/232619\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Aspinall responds to Ciryl Gane\u2019s plan to take him to \u2018deep waters\u2019 at UFC 321"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Tom Aspinall is one of the fastest finishers in MMA, but questions remain about his ability to go the distance, if necessary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The undisputed heavyweight champion defends his title against Ciryl Gane in the main event of UFC 321 this Saturday in Abu Dhabi, and unsurprisingly, the topic of Aspinall\u2019s in-cage longevity has come up more than once. At media day Wednesday, Gane and Aspinall both addressed the issue, with Gane suggesting he might strategize to extend the bout past the first two rounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cEverybody knows my strength,\u201d Gane said. \u201cEverybody knows his strengths also. I can do very well to manage my distance and go to the second round, but even in a different way, if I want, I can go very fast in the very first round. Maybe go to the deep waters with Tom Aspinall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">During Aspinall\u2019s current three-fight win streak, none of his opponents have made it past the 90-second mark of Round 1. In his eight UFC wins, only veteran Andrei Arlovski made it to Round 2, where he was finished shortly after. In comparison, Gane has seen the scorecards five times in 12 UFC appearances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">When Gane\u2019s comments were presented to Aspinall during his media scrum, he reacted with amusement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cDid he actually use the word deep waters?\u201d Aspinall said. \u201cEverybody who said the word \u2018deep waters\u2019 gets knocked out in the first minute. Go back and check the media that you\u2019ve done. So I\u2019m pretty happy with that, that\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Aspinall makes his first defense as undisputed champion following the retirement of Jon Jones, who held that status until this past June. Prior to that, Aspinall was recognized as interim heavyweight champion, and he successfully defended that title once, defeating Curtis Blaydes in 60 seconds in July 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">He enters UFC 321 as a considerable favorite (currently hovering around 5-to-1 on <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsbook.fanduel.com\/mma\/ufc-matches\/tom-aspinall-v-ciryl-gane-34547351\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FanDuel<\/a>) and public sentiment seems to be viewing this as a perfunctory defense for the 32-year-old Aspinall, who is expected to have a lengthy reign at the top of his division. Aspinall refuses to put the cart before the horse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m better than anybody,\u201d Aspinall said. \u201cI think that every fight I go into I really respect my opponent, especially Ciryl. I think there\u2019s this notion with the media and maybe the fans that Ciryl\u2019s not very good, which is just complete bullshit. I think that he\u2019s really, really good. He\u2019s super talented. He\u2019s been at the top of the division for a number of years, which is not easy to do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cHe\u2019s been an interim champion himself. He\u2019s obviously had two title shots for the undisputed title as well. I think the guy\u2019s really good. I\u2019ve took him extremely, extremely seriously. The fact that people expect it to be an easy fight, I don\u2019t read into that at all. I\u2019m prepared for a really, really hard fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Asked multiple times Wednesday about his ability to compete in a longer fight, Aspinall eventually responded in jest, suggesting that his team\u2019s goal now is to make sure the fight goes to a decision, one that might draw the ire of the fans at Etihad Arena.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI think everybody\u2019s seen me go in there and get quick finishes,\u201d Aspinall said. \u201cI\u2019ve got one of the best heavyweight teams in the world if not the best heavyweight team, some of the best minds in the game, some of the best training partners in the game. We actually discussed and we\u2019ve shown what we can do, shown how dangerous I am, and we\u2019re going to switch it up this time and we\u2019re going to go out there and win a boring split decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cAs I just said, we\u2019re going for a five-round split decision, close fight, win,\u201d Aspinall continued, jokingly. \u201cJust jabs. Just jabbing your way to a win. Crowd will be booing after a couple of minutes and just maintain that slow pace for five rounds. That\u2019s what we\u2019re going for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Aspinall is one of the fastest finishers in MMA, but questions remain about his ability to go&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-232619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232619","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=232619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}