{"id":885634,"date":"2026-09-09T12:02:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/885634\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T12:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:02:14","slug":"dana-white-heavyweight-division-will-keep-rolling-without-tom-aspinall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/885634\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana White: Heavyweight division will \u2018keep rolling\u2019 without Tom Aspinall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Between Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall, the UFC heavyweight division has been stalled out<\/a> for years now. But there\u2019s some small hope that things will get moving again after some new comments from UFC CEO Dana White<\/p>\n

White was speaking to the press following his Tuesday night Contender Series event<\/a> and was asked if there was any update on the health of current UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall, who has been sidelined with injuries to his eyes since last October.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d White said, looking resigned and a bit frustrated. \u201cI mean, Tom Aspinall is hurt, y\u2019know, until we hear differently. So \u2026 the heavyweight division will just keep rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n

That leaves the UFC in a tough spot, and we\u2019ve seen what happens in tough spots: main events like UFC 332\u2019s Natalia Silva vs. Wang Cong<\/a> for the vacant<\/a> women\u2019s flyweight title. Aspinall vs. Gane 2 has been a top contender for the promotion\u2019s big Madison Square Garden card in November for a while. If it\u2019s not ready, could an interim (or perhaps another vacant) title fight take its place?<\/p>\n

Alex Pereira has come out and demanded an immediate rematch<\/a> against interim champ Ciryl Gane, which only makes a tiny amount of sense if Tom Aspinall isn\u2019t ready. And then you\u2019ve got Josh Hokit demanding his due<\/a> after going 4-0 since his arrival a year ago. The UFC heavyweight division is definitely ready to get rolling without Aspinall, if that\u2019s the UFC\u2019s call. Let\u2019s see what they do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Between Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall, the UFC heavyweight division has been stalled out for years now. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-885634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885634","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=885634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}