UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall will make his first defense of the belt against Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 on October 25th in Abu Dhabi and he’s added some extra spice to the match-up by claiming that the French star has already ducked fighting him on three occasions.

“Finally we’re back after over a year hiatus,” Aspinall said on Instagram. “Me and Ciryl Gane finally signed on the dotted line. This is the fourth time we’ve been matched up together. He turned me down [for a] fight early on, before we were in the rankings.

“After that, he fought [Serghei] Spivac. I said in a post-fight interview after I beat [Marcin] Tybura [that I was going to fight the winner of that fight at UFC Paris. I went to Paris, Ciryl, unfortunately, turned down the fight on a second occasion.”

Aspinall went on to explain that Gane was also supposed to be his opponent for his first interim heavyweight title defense, but ultimately had to face Curtis Blaydes instead.

“The original opponent was Ciryl Gane. Unfortunately, Ciryl was busy that date [and] was filming his Netflix series. … And now we are matched up for the 25th of October, Abu Dhabi. Me and Ciryl, the fourth attempt is here, and this is Ciryl’s third title shot.

“We are going to try and get rid of Ciryl Gane from the title picture for good.”