{"id":389625,"date":"2026-01-05T13:45:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T13:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/389625\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T13:45:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T13:45:04","slug":"aspinall-on-pereira-vs-gane-interim-title-its-a-good-stylistic-match-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/389625\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspinall on Pereira vs. Gane interim title: \u2018It\u2019s a good stylistic match-up\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall had to admit he wouldn\u2019t mind seeing Alex Pereira fight Ciryl Gane.<\/p>\n

Aspinall is stuck on the sidelines with an eye injury that required surgery<\/a> \u2026 something you don\u2019t just rush back from unless you want to end up half-blind like Michael Bisping.<\/a> That\u2019s led many to speculate on a potential Alex Pereira move up to heavyweight, where he\u2019d potentially face Ciryl Gane for an interim title.<\/p>\n

In a new video on Tom Aspinall\u2019s own YouTube channel, he discussed the idea with Paddy Pimblett. When sharing their predictions for all the divisions in 2026, things got interesting at light heavyweight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt depends on what Alex Pereira does, don\u2019t it? He could be moving up,\u201d Pimblett said. \u201cTom needs to get healthy, you know what I mean? Wouldn\u2019t surprise me if Pereira did move up and they do an interim belt between Pereira and Gane. That would be a good fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a good fight,\u201d Aspinall agreed. \u201cI think it\u2019s a good stylistic match-up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to get back again, don\u2019t we,\u201d he added, clearly frustrated.<\/p>\n

As for that, Aspinall revealed that he had at least one and possibly two surgeries<\/a> on his eyes lined up for the end of December and January \u2026 plus a meeting with UFC brass.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeen a bit of a long process cuz with eyes — like with other injuries, they just fix them straight away,\u201d Aspinall said. \u201cWith eyes, because it\u2019s obviously risky, they try and let them heal naturally. So we\u2019re getting surgery on this [right] eye. Keep me out for a little bit. Not sure how long just yet though. Got a meeting about it soon. So it\u2019s just been a slow process, a nightmare to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Could that meeting be about a potential interim title being deployed for Alex Pereira? That would turn promotional lemons into lemonade.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of smoke regarding rumors that \u201cPoatan\u201d is preparing for his long-teased heavyweight run.<\/a> Now that Aspinall injured, there\u2019d never be a better chance for him to sneak in and grab that belt. And for Aspinall, this may be the only way he could force Pereira to face him when he returns. With UFC looking to set up as many big fights as possible for their new broadcast partners at Paramount CBS, we wouldn\u2019t be surprised if that\u2019s the path they take in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall had to admit he wouldn\u2019t mind seeing Alex Pereira fight Ciryl Gane.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-389625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}