Ciryl Gane might have missed the opportunity of a lifetime by opting out of the interim heavyweight title fight against Tom Aspinall last year. The reason? Scheduling conflicts. Likely, ‘Bon Gamin’s movie endeavors. The heavyweight from Factory MMA was in last year’s Netflix special La Cage where he played himself. Aspinall wasn’t impressed by this stint as he commented, “He might really want to be an actor, that might be his thing.” Gane’s absence from both occasions where he was booked against Aspinall was attributed to Netflix causing delays, according to coach Fernand Lopez. But he didn’t stop at the streaming giant, as he directed a subtle message to Dana White and the UFC matchmakers.

Appearing on The Ariel Helwani Show, Lopez was asked if Gane was really offered a fight against Aspinall in 2024. He answered, “Not whatsoever.” He forwarded a request to MMA journalist and the media — “ask Dana White and matchmakers to ensure people stop lying about Gane’s decision back in 2024.” He continued, “Because this is a totally lie. Like, matchmaking are not mad. I mean, thankfully, it’s not happening. No one, like now, Almeida cannot come around the cage of Tom Aspinall, and say, ‘Tom, I’m the next.’ And then if Tom do not answer to the callout, then Tom become a dog because he avoided that fight. That did not make sense.” 

Lopez never really got word from the Englishman’s team. He said, “Me, as an agent, I receive no one, never mentioned Tom Aspinall name, before the Manchester, which happened during a shooting, movie shooting that we had the permission from UFC. We asked the UFC, ‘What is the frame of time where we can have film shooting for serial and there will not be a fight?’ And they say, ‘Okay, this is your frame time.’ We went there, we had that movie, we signed the contract with a lot of money on the table, and we have to deliver when we signed the contract.” 

When he got back to the UFC, Hunter Campbell offered Gane a fight scheduled for July 2024 in Manchester. But Gane and Lopez still had to deal with Netflix, for which they asked Hunter Campbell to have a word with the streaming giant. According to Gane’s teammate, Campbell had dinner with Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, to come to some sort of agreement. However, the commitment was already made by then, and rescheduling the shoots last July would have proven to be too expensive for all parties involved.

The pair were originally matched up when they were unranked, but didn’t materialise. Next, Gane turned down the fighter after beating Serghei Spivac in September 2023. Then they were matched up for UFC 304, but scheduling conflicts for Gane prevented that fight from happening. Now, after three failed bookings, the fourth time has proven to be a charm, as Tom Aspinall will defend his undisputed title against Ciryl Gane at UFC 321.

“We are going to try and get rid of Ciryl Gane from the title picture for good.” Aspinall said after the matchup became official for October. And how did Team Gane respond? Let’s take a closer ook.

Ciryl Gane’s coach responds to Tom Aspinall’s bold claim

On The Ariel Helwani Show, Fernand Lopez rejected the claims about Ciryl Gane being scared of fighting Tom Aspinall. According to him, there’s no way a top 10 fighter would be scared to fight anyone. It was just scheduling conflicts that got in the way, not Gane being a “coward” or anything. And how did Lopez respond to Aspinall’s most recent words?

The coach said, “Him saying that he will retire Cyril Gane, or he will erase him from the title run, makes sense for me. This is fair enough. It’s OK. It’s hard to build the fight in total to clash a little bit. But just keep this in mind: Tom Aspinall has more pressure on him than any other fighter has experienced in the last decade. Can you imagine what will happen if Tom Aspinall does not deliver on October 25? That will be beyond an embarrassment. This is a lot of pressure that you don’t want to take on your shoulders.” 

The stage is now set, and we will finally get an undisputed heavyweight title fight, featuring Tom Aspinall — just not in the way we would have wanted, as we’d been waiting for that fight with Jon Jones until the latter retired. Still, this is a step forward for the heaviest division in the UFC.