Team Tom Aspinall Aren’t Worried About Ciryl Gane After Training with Heavyweight Kickboxing Champ
Tom Aspinall has gotten in some work with the cream of the crop in kickboxing and those in the heavyweight champ’s camp are not concerned by the stand up portion of this Ciryl Gane fight. Aspinall will defend his UFC heavyweight title against former interim titleholder Gane at UFC 321 on Saturday, October 25th.
Generational talent and prolific heavyweight kickboxing champ Rico Verhoeven has historically gotten in work with Aspinall and the former has highly praised the latter’s striking capabilities. Father and coach Andy Aspinall was speaking about the machinations of this Aspinall-Gane matchup during a recent UFC countdown effort for this pay-per-view.
When touching upon what Ciryl Gane brings to the table in this Abu Dhabi-based championship fight and how that fits into what his son will do in this championship defense, Andy Aspinall said,
“Ciryl Gane, he’s a good points fighter for me. He’s a kickbox, flicker and toucher. He finishes fights but he takes a lot of shots to finish people. Tom’s a lot more clinical. I don’t think his skill set will cause [Tom] issues at all.”
Tom Aspinall and the one UFC heavyweight he will not fight
Tom Aspinall is game to fight basically anyone in the heavyweight division except for a recent UFC debutant who previously had made waves in the PFL. That fighter is Ante Delija and there is a good reason for why Aspinall would not sign that particular bout agreement.
As he expressed the logic behind that lack of desire to be locked into a Delija fight while speaking to Spinnin Backfist, Aspinall stated [via MMA Knockout on SI],
“I definitely didn’t say that to catch headlines. I was literally just speaking from the heart on that. I’ve got a rule, where, if guys who have been in my house, and been around my family or vice versa, that I just can’t envision myself fighting them at all.”
