Tom Aspinall was cage-side to watch Ciryl Gane’s dominant win over Sergey Spivak at UFC Fight Night 226 in Paris yesterday, and afterwards said he’d be happy to fight the former heavyweight title contender next.
“I’m not a bully, do you know what I mean?” Aspinall told Mac Life. “If he doesn’t want the fight I’m not going to try and force it on him.
“I wanted to go in the cage [after Gane’s win]. The UFC didn’t want me to go in the cage. Yeah, if he wants the fight it’s here, if he doesn’t want the fight we’ll see. I know I’m a bad match-up for him. I think that stylistically it’s a good match-up for me, but if he doesn’t want it then I understand.”
For his part Gane appears to be keeping his sights focused on getting another title shot, so if he’s out of the picture and Aspinall isn’t going to get the nod to face the winner of the upcoming Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic title fight then who does the No.4 ranked Aspinall want next instead?
“Well it only leaves one guy left doesn’t it? The big Russian fella [Sergei Pavlovich] who no-one wants, and I’m happy to step up and take that. Like, I’m more than happy to fight Sergei Pavlovich. I was supposed to fight him two times before, the fights didn’t happen for whatever reason and yeah, let’s do it man, like I’m happy to fight anyone that gets me close to the title now.”
With all that being said, if Aspinall had his pick he’d ideally like to fight Jon Jones for the title next.
“I want to fight for the title. Whoever that may be, they are all tough fights ahead of me. Ciryl Gane is a good guy, Sergei [Pavlovich] is a good guy, Jon Jones is a good guy…obviously!
“All tough fights, and I’ll fight any of them, or all of them. Not at the same time though, I don’t wanna do that! Just one at a time, preferably Jon Jones first, but the order isn’t important.”
