Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 17, 2025 Paid Members Posted September 17, 2025 (edited) Good riddance Jon Jones… PPV MAIN CARD Tom Aspinall©️vs Ciryl Gane - Heavyweight Title Virna Jandiroba vs Mackenzie Dern - Vacant Strawweight Title Umar Nurmagomedov vs Mario Bautista Alexander Volkov vs Jailton Almeida Aleksandar Rakic vs Azamat Murzakanov ESPN PRELIMS Nasrat Haqparast vs Quillan Salkilld Ikram Aliskerov vs Jun Yong Park Mateusz Rebecki vs Ludovit Klein Valter Walker vs Louie Sutherland ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS Jose Delgado vs Nathaniel Wood Hamdy Abdelwahab vs Chris Barnett Azat Maksum vs Mitch Raposo Jaqueline Amorim vs Mizuki Inoue Good stuff. Reminder that this is gonna be on TNT Box Office. On the plus side, it’s also gonna be on at a lovely UK friendly time. The UFC website has the main card listed for 7pm, which probably means 5pm prelims. Get in! The main card bout order is right at the moment, prelims I’m not sure, but I’ll update it as we go. I like the look of this card. It’s not mega deep but there’s enough there to sink your teeth into. This’ll be a long read… Tom Aspinall vs Ciryl Gane tops the bill. Interesting for a few reasons. First off, just because the division is finally moving again and Aspinall’s finally free of the bullshit Jon Jones had him buried in for over a year. And also, this fight itself has been a long time coming. These two actually have some history. I wouldn’t say there’s any beef there but there’s definitely been some back and forth based on Gane ducking Aspinall multiple times in the past. I’m bang up for this. Not sure what kind of fight to expect really, just glad something is actually happening now. Imagine this fight in the UK or France? That’s the only thing I don’t like about this. It being in Abu Dhabi feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. But whatever. At least it’ll be on at a European friendly time. It’s a long story how we got here but I’m gonna try and get the timeline correct. Ciryl Gane made his UFC debut in August 2019. Tom Aspinall made his first Octagon appearance in July 2020. As is standard, they both beat up on ham and eggers early on before getting their first step ups about a year or so in. Gane’s came against Junior Dos Santos, Aspinall’s was against Andrei Arlovski. They both passed the test. Gane ended up becoming interim champion in 2021 due to then undisputed champ Francis Ngannou having a fallout with the UFC behind the scenes. Those two finally met in January 2022 and Ngannou beat Gane by decision. Meanwhile, Aspinall had racked up first round finishes over Serghei Spivac and Alexander Volkov. The Volkov win in London being his big breakthrough moment. But right when it felt like he was on the cusp of something big, he blew his knee out seconds into the Curtis Blaydes fight and was out for a full year. Gane came back from the Ngannou loss, headlined the first ever UFC card in France and knocked out Tai Tuivasa in a fun fight. In March 2023, Gane got his second crack at UFC undisputed gold. By now, Ngannou’s dispute with UFC management reached the point where they decided to go their separate ways. Ngannou was gone, the title was now vacant, and Gane would face…Jon Jones in a fight to crown a new champion. It felt like it came out of nowhere at the time. At that point Jones hadn’t fought in over three years and he’d never fought at Heavyweight. A huge opportunity for Gane… …and he shat the bed big time. Threw a reckless punch, Jones ducked it and took him down, Jones got the guillotine choke, Gane tapped. Whole thing lasted two minutes and it was probably one of the most embarrassing performances in a title fight in UFC history. I gave Gane a good chance of winning going in, which sounds stupid with the benefit of hindsight. But given his natural size advantage and the fact Jones was coming up in weight and hadn’t fought in so long, it felt like a good time for Gane to get him. What I didn’t factor in was Gane’s fight IQ being the shits. In July 2023, the UFC returned to London and Aspinall was finally making his comeback from the knee injury. Back to the scene of the crime at the O2, a year almost to the day since the injury. It was a very successful return and he dusted Marcin Tybura just over a minute into the fight. This is where we first saw public talk of a possible Aspinall vs Gane fight. Immediately after steamrolling Tybura, Aspinall called for the winner of the upcoming Paris headliner of Gane vs Spivac. Gane beat Spivac, Aspinall was right there in the front row. Yet the fight didn’t happen. More on that in a bit. While all this was going on, new champ Jones had been booked to defend against Stipe Miocic on the MSG card in November. But a few weeks before the fight, Jones pulled out with a torn pec and the Stipe fight got scrapped altogether. The UFC scrambled to rebuild the card, and on just a couple of weeks notice, managed to throw together an interim title fight between Aspinall and Sergei Pavlovich. It was some night for Aspinall. I loved this whole thing. From Aspinall stepping up against Pavlovich, who at the time was being talked about as maybe the scariest puncher in the division, on short notice. To him walking out to ‘Englishman In New York’ by Sting, which was the perfect song choice. Neither had a training camp and they just went in there and threw bombs at each other, Pavlovich did clip him early but Aspinall returned fire and put him down at 1:09 of the first round. What a night. But this is where it got messy. We’ve talked about the Jones vs Aspinall saga to death at this point but it’s been a massive part of Aspinall’s story and the reason we haven’t seen him in over a year. This is where Jones started really taking the piss. Instead of recognising Aspinall as the interim champion, and by default the nailed on top contender for the undisputed strap, the UFC decided to rebook the original Jones vs Stipe fight. I saw all kinds of arguments and defence for this with people saying that because it was the fight that was planned for the 2023 MSG card, it had to go ahead. I said it then and I maintain it now, that’s utter bollocks. When Jones vs Stipe was booked the first time, I wasn’t in love with it but I didn’t have a massive issue with it. The difference by 2024 though, was Aspinall had now become interim champ. That should’ve changed plans and the direction of the division but it didn’t. Aspinall had to defend his interim belt, which is ridiculous in itself, while the so called ‘undisputed’ champ Jones sat on the sidelines. Aspinall rematched Blaydes on the Manchester card in July 2024 and chinned him in exactly one minute. Jones was hate watching and must’ve been seething. He’d been vocal from the time the fight was announced that he thought Blaydes was gonna win and was basically saying Aspinall was nothing more than a flash in the pan. It was radio silence from Jones for a bit after Aspinall won though. Even with Aspinall getting on the mic and calling him out post-fight. “Hello Jon”. - Tom Aspinall By this point it had already became crystal clear that Jones didn’t want anything to do with a fight with Aspinall. The Stipe fight got made official again, for the MSG card again, in November 2024. So the pointless Jones vs Stipe bullshit had dragged on for an entire year at this stage. They finally fought in November and it was as one-sided as everyone expected and Stipe looked as old, slow and washed up as everyone with a brain thought he would. Jones and his fans tried to dress it up as this big legacy boosting win over the Heavyweight GOAT but it was a hollow victory by this point. Everyone who knew what was going on and didn’t have Jones’ ball bag in their mouth saw it for exactly what it was. It was both a shameless ducking of Aspinall and cherry picking a once great fighter who was now 42, had been inactive for nearly four years and was showing up for one last payday. It couldn’t have been clearer what Jones’ game was but you still had people in denial who were bizarrely fighting is corner. I genuinely don’t know how or why Jones still has a single fan left. Even putting aside his horrible outside the cage antics, which include domestic violence. Just focusing on his MMA career, when did it become admirable to duck fights? Who actively roots for a fight ducker? And that’s the ‘GOAT’ to a lot of these fools. Anyway, it dragged on some more even after Jones beat Stipe. Even though he clearly had zero intention of fighting Aspinall, he pissed about for another seven months holding the belt hostage and holding the division up. According to Helwani, the UFC tried to move heaven and earth to get Jones vs Aspinall on. Jones threw out a number and the UFC supposedly met it, with help from Turki and his never ending pot of Saudi money. Jones agreed to the fight, then apparently changed his mind and turned it down again. That’s the story both Dana and Helwani have told. Which makes me think it’s legit. You couldn’t get those two to agree that grass is green so for them to both be saying the same thing here, it adds credibility to that version of events. The knob didn’t think they’d match his number, he was trying to price himself out and they called his bluff ? In June the day finally came. Dana made the announcement, at a post-fight press conference after a Fight Night in Azerbaijan of all times and places, that Jon Jones was retired and the Heavyweight title was now vacant. And Tom Aspinall’s interim belt had been upgraded to undisputed status. Aspinall had called it way in advance… Finally the division can move on and Aspinall can get on with his career. Didn’t take long for Aspinall vs Gane to get announced for October. Predictably, no sooner had Jones retired, he was doing interviews saying he wasn’t retired anymore and he wants to fight on this White House card everyone’s been banging on about lately. Basically, as soon as Aspinall was booked against someone else, this slimy prick resurfaced. I said it before but I think a big part of the reason this whole thing dragged on so long was because Jones thought that if he just kept stalling, Aspinall would get sick of waiting and would take another fight. He was praying that someone else would take care of the Aspinall problem for him. He’s said recently that he doesn’t care about the belt now, or who he fights, he just wants to fight on the White House card. So that’s gonna be his justification for cherry picking another easy win over Derrick Lewis or Tai Tuivasa or something. Now he’s not holding the belt up, it doesn’t really matter. But you just know if Aspinall loses to Gane here, Jones will suddenly be interested in the belt again. He really is pathetic. He was never serious about retiring, he was just backed into a corner and he had to find a way out of the Aspinall fight. We move on. Enter Gane. Again. Back in the mix for his third crack at UFC gold. I think most people felt like Aspinall vs Gane was the inevitable fight once Jones finally fucked off. Really though, I don’t get why he was seen as the nailed on top challenger. He’s 3-2 in his last five and the two losses were failed title shots. Since the last one against Jones he’s beat mediocre Spivac and took a very iffy and questionable split decision over Volkov in his last fight in December, which most seemed to have Volkov winning. I guess Heavyweight is so shallow at this point though, logic goes out the window. A big part of the story going into this fight though, is gonna be the allegations that Gane repeatedly ducked Aspinall previously. Aspinall has talked about it a bunch of times and went through the whole timeline when this fight got made official… “Me and Ciryl, finally signed on the dotted line. We have actually, from my maths, this is the fourth time we’ve been matched up together. Me and Ciryl got in the UFC around about the same time, I think he was there a little bit before me. First of all, we got matched up and I believe he turned down the fight. Early on, before we were both in the rankings. After that, I went to Paris. He fought Spivac. I said in the post-fight interview after I beat Tybura, ‘I’m gonna go to Paris, I’m gonna sit there front row and I’m gonna fight the winner of Gane vs Spivac’. I went to Paris, Ciryl turned down the fight. Third occasion! When I fought in Manchester, I fought Curtis Blaydes. The original opponent was Ciryl Gane. Unfortunately, Ciryl Gane was busy that day. Ciryl was filming his Netflix series…can’t remember what it’s called. So he couldn’t make that date either. So now we’re matched up for the 25th October, Abu Dhabi, me and Ciryl. The fourth attempt is here!” - Tom Aspinall I’ve actually seen some people (no doubt Jones fans) saying Aspinall ducked Gane. Don’t know how you’d come to that conclusion when Aspinall publicly called Gane out and then Gane went on a media tour telling everyone who would listen that he didn’t want the Aspinall fight and that it “made no sense”. There was a clip doing the rounds after the press conference recently of Aspinall running into Gane’s coach Fernand Lopez. And Lopez was swearing up and down that Gane never ducked him. The evidence paints a different picture though… Gane’s reasoning at the time in 2023 was that he didn’t wanna fight Aspinall because he wanted a title shot. Another one. Despite losing in embarrassing fashion to Jones in his last title shot and, at that point, only beating Spivac since. Shit like this is what soured me on Gane. I liked him early in his UFC run and I remember defending him when people were critical of him being boring in certain fights. I thought it was harsh at the time because he was still relatively green in MMA. But ducking fights and having this sense of entitlement of thinking he deserves to just keep getting title shot after title shot, he’s become quite annoying for me. It wasn’t just Aspinall he ducked either, Curtis Blaydes said publicly to the media that Gane turned down fights with him as well. But now he’s up for fighting Aspinall because the title’s on the line? Here we go then. How does this one go? I think most people are gonna favour Aspinall. I am myself. I think he’s just more dangerous. And at Heavyweight that’s probably the most important thing you can be. The margins for error with guys this size are so small, one mistake can be all it takes. So having legitimate knockout power is a massive plus. We know Aspinall has that. If we’re being honest, it’s pretty much all we know about him. Still. Even after nine UFC fights, we don’t know much about him at all, simply because he hasn’t had to show anything other than he can punch holes through faces. All his UFC fights bar one (Arlovski) have ended in the first round and seven of them were done and dusted inside three minutes. Many think that’s a big part of why Jones didn’t want any. He likes to study tape on his opponents and there isn’t a whole lot of footage out there on Aspinall. We know he can whack, we know he moves well, but that’s it. He’s shown a few defensive weaknesses at times and we’ve seen very little of his grappling. It’s said to be good but we haven’t actually seen it yet so the jury’s out. Same for his cardio and his heart if a fight isn’t going his way. These are all x-factors and intangibles he just hasn’t had to show yet. He’s been getting by simply on account of being quicker on the draw than his opponents. That combination of power and speed has been enough and the division is so thin on genuinely skilled fighters that a fighter like that could potentially stay on top for years without having to show anything else. He says all the right things though, seems to have his head screwed on and a healthy and realistic attitude about his strengths and weaknesses. I’m optimistic but there’s always gonna be those questions hanging over him until he answers them. Heavyweight being Heavyweight, maybe he won’t ever have to. Or maybe he gets chinned in his next fight. You never know in that division. “You can expect an improved version of me. I’ve had a year to just train. A year to test my skills and improve. I think, both me and Ciryl, we both have niche styles for heavyweight. We don’t fight like heavyweights. This could be the fastest, the best moving heavyweight fight that anybody’s ever seen. We’re both light on our feet, we’re both elusive, so this is gonna be great. I believe I’m the best heavyweight in the world but I wanna show everyone that I’m the best heavyweight in the world. Ciryl Gane’s lost two title shots, I wanna give him his third title shot loss.” - Tom Aspinall He makes a good point on benefitting from a solid year of just training. Fighters always say that’s when you make the most gains and improvements, when you don’t have a fight booked and can just train to improve instead of tailoring a training camp for a specific opponent or style. Aspinall hasn’t been sat on his arse this whole time. When the UFC were trying to make the Jones fight they told Aspinall to stay in shape and stay ready. I’ve followed his YouTube channel for a while and he’s been in the gym the whole time working on stuff, doing his strength and conditioning, eating clean etc. He’s been taking it seriously. Despite the layoff, he should be sharp here. Where Gane could make it interesting is what Aspinall touches on there. He doesn’t move like a typical Heavyweight and he might be the only one in the division who can match Aspinall in athleticism. He’s got the striking background as well but I don’t know. I really feel like this is a fight Aspinall should win. Gane has all the physical attributes but he just fights like an idiot sometimes. I’m not just talking about the Jones fight either. Even his last fight against Volkov, he was doing goofy shit in the grappling and even his striking seemed like it had regressed. That combined with Aspinall being more explosive and having bigger one shot power, he really should be winning. You know Jones is gonna pop back up and be insufferable in the build up as well. And even if Aspinall wins decisively, Jones fans are gonna be looking for anything to latch onto. Even if Aspinall flattens him but the fight lasts 10 seconds longer than Jones vs Gane did, they’ll say ‘yeah but Jones beat him quicker. He’s the GOAT!!!’ God help us if Aspinall loses. Virna Jandiroba vs Mackenzie Dern 2 co-headlines. A rematch for the vacant Strawweight title. This one kind of came out of nowhere. Former dominant champion Zhang Weili relinquished the belt because she’s moving up a division to challenge Flyweight champ Valentina Shevchenko. That actually did kind of seem to be on the cards for a while, I think a lot of people felt like it was a matter of time before Zhang moved up. But this Jandiroba vs Dern rematch still kind of felt a bit out of the blue. I guess with the way the Strawweight division sits currently though, this makes sense. Jandiroba’s ranked #1 anyway so by rights she had to be figured in to any vacant title fight. Dern’s at #5 but the names above her like Amanda Lemos, Yan Xiaonan and Tatiana Suarez had all had title shots and lost, and Lemos and Suarez were already booked against each other. Jandiroba and Dern are the two highest ranked Strawweights who’ve never received a title shot. So I’m alright with this. Not expecting a barnburner but it’ll do. They first met back in December 2020 at UFC 256. That was in the thick of COVID so, despite being a PPV, that fight took place at the Apex. Dern won by unanimous decision. I know I saw the fight at the time but I have no memory of it whatsoever. Just looked back at the thread for that event to see what my thoughts were. I was very positive on the matchup going in, clearly expecting/hoping that they’d both decide to test their grappling skills against each other. My post-fight thoughts were less positive though. I said it wasn’t a bad fight but that it could’ve been a lot better. Guessing it ended up being the classic grappler vs grappler battle where they both decide to have a subpar standup fight instead. I might do my usual thing of rewatching and reviewing it in here anyway. If I can be arsed. I’m a fan of Jandiroba. She’s likeable as fuck, seems a fun character and when she plays to her strengths and gets her BJJ going, she’s great to watch. It’s kind of that Demian Maia thing where if they can get the momentum rolling in the grappling, it can be beautiful to watch. But if the avenues to the grappling get closed off, it can make for a bit of a stinker. Jandiroba’s class though. She’s not the most popular because she doesn’t look like Paige VanZant or resort to twerking all over the cage in lieu of actual skills or personality like some (ahem…Ailin Perez) but she’s a good fighter and she’s earned this opportunity. She’s 22-3 now with 15 finishes, 14 of them submissions. She’s a former Invicta champion and she’s currently on a five fight winning streak. She subbed Amanda Lemos last summer with a sweet armbar, then beat Yan Xiaonan on points in April this year. At 37, I was starting to think she might never get her chance to fight for UFC gold and, even if she did, it was inevitable that Zhang would crush her. But here we are. She’s getting her shot and in a much more winnable fight. I think the UFC have been itching to get Dern in the title mix for ages but she’d always fall at the last hurdle. She came into the UFC back in 2018 with some real hype based on 1) her looks and 2) her BJJ credentials. In that order. She was undefeated at 5-0 with four submissions at the time but she’d already missed weight twice. She didn’t look great in her UFC debut, winning a split decision. Then she bulldozed Amanda Cooper in her second fight but missed weight again going in. So that was three weight misses in her first seven fights! She took over a year out to have her baby, returned and suffered her first loss to Amanda Ribas in 2019. But becoming a mum seemed to light a spark under her and understandably give her new and completely different motivation and focus. After that setback against Ribas, Dern went on a four fight win streak, with three submissions and three POTN bonuses. It was in that little streak that she beat Jandiroba. She’s had losses here and there since but to this day she’s never missed weight again since having her daughter. It’s been a right mixed bag of results the last few years though. She’s gone 4-4 in her last eight fights but she’s coming into this one off back-to-back wins. She beat Loopy Godinez last summer, then avenged the loss to Ribas in January this year. Not sure how this goes, especially over five rounds. Guessing most will root for Dern but I’d actually love to see Jandiroba win the title before she calls it a day. Umar Nurmagomedov vs Mario Bautista. Not sure how exciting it’ll be but I’m very interested to see how it plays out. Umar’s coming off that loss to Merab Dvalishvili in their title fight in January. Easily one of the best fights this year for me and, despite Merab winning quite convincingly in the end, Umar gave him a tougher fight than anyone else has lately. He couldn’t keep up with Merab’s pace in the championship rounds but who can? He certainly didn’t embarrass himself and that was his first loss. He’s 18-1 now and only one fight removed from a clear win over Cory Sandhagen. He’s the real deal. Bautista’s become a bit of a spoiler in the Bantamweight division recently though. He’s 32 years old with a 16-2 record and is coming into this fight on an eight fight winning streak. He wasn’t really on many people’s radars until he beat Jose Aldo last October in what turned out to be Aldo’s farewell fight. Bautista got a lot of shit for the fight being boring (it was a dull fight) but I don’t remember him being bad to watch before that. He then completely killed any buzz Patchy Mix’s UFC debut had by beating him as well. But that didn’t do anything to get rid of his new ‘boring fighter’ rep either because it was another poor fight. Mostly a bad performance from Mix though, in my opinion. I’m intrigued to see how this goes because Bautista probably won’t be able to just stifle Umar here. I think this could be one of those fights where a lot of people go in expecting a snoozer and it turns out to be really good. Alexander Volkov vs Jailton Almeida is another big fight in the Heavyweight division. This is almost certainly a number one contender match. And it’s also a smart move to put this fight on the same card as Aspinall vs Gane, for the obvious reason that if someone drops out of the main event, you’ve got two very credible backup options here. Hopefully they’re not needed as backups but it’s always a good idea to cover all bases. If everything goes smoothly though, the winner of this fight will most likely be next in line for whoever the champion is after Aspinall vs Gane is done and dusted. Volkov turns 37 the day before this fight. No spring chicken but age is less of a drawback at Heavyweight. Still, obviously more of his career is now behind him than ahead of him. He’s one of the most experienced Heavyweights on the roster with a record of 38-11. And of those 38 wins, 28 came inside the distance. He’s had his moments. Knocked out Fabricio Werdum in London in 2018, stopped Alistair Overeem in 2021 in what might’ve been the best performance of his career and more recently he was on a four fight winning streak beating Rozenstruik, Tuivasa and Pavlovich along the way. His streak came to an end in his last fight in December, losing by split decision to Ciryl Gane. A controversial decision though, most felt Volkov won, and there was a video with Dana even saying to Volkov on the night that he got “fucked” by the judges. Yet they still rewarded Gane with a title shot and Volkov’s having to take this route. Jailton Almeida is no joke. He’s 34 years old, a BJJ black-belt and in MMA he’s gone 22-3 with 21 finishes. He came through DWCS in 2021 and made his UFC debut as a Light Heavyweight in 2022. Squashed Danilo Marques in his debut and since then he’s been back at Heavyweight. His first five UFC fights never made it to the scorecards but he went five rounds with Derrick Lewis in their São Paulo headliner in November 2023. Awful fight as I recall and it felt like it really cooled the hype on Almeida at the time. And any hype that was left evaporated when he got stopped by Curtis Blaydes in his next fight. Since the Blaydes loss though, he’s rallied back with a couple of first round finishes over Alexandr Romanov and Serghei Spivac. I’ve still got my doubts about him at the very top level but he’s Brazil’s best hope of a Heavyweight champ at this point. And to be honest, I think he’s a trickier challenge for Aspinall than Gane is. Good fight here though. How entertaining it is remains to be seen but this feels legit as a title eliminator. The winner will be a worthy next contender either way. Aleksandar Rakic vs Azamat Murzakanov is kicking off the main card as of the time of me typing this. I like it. I’m usually negative on the Light Heavyweight division these days but this is decent. Austria’s Rakic is a guy I briefly thought could be a serious prospect at 205 when he first came in back in 2017 but he’s never quite been able to put everything together for whatever reason. He scored one of the scariest knockouts in UFC history, in my opinion, when he headkicked Jimi Manuwa into oblivion in 42 seconds in Sweden back in 2019. He was never able to build on that though and a knee injury against Jan Blachowicz in 2022 certainly didn’t help. He was out two years after that. He came back at UFC 300 last year and lost to Jiri Prochazka but it was a really fun fight, to be fair. Then he lost a decision to Ankalaev in October last year and hasn’t fought since. Murzakanov is an interesting one for me. Undefeated at 15-0 with 12 finishes and he’s looked a bit of a wrecking ball so far in the UFC. But he’s already 36 years old so too long in the tooth really for the ‘prospect’ tag. I’m glad to see him finally bag a fight with a ranked opponent. He was meant to fight Johnny Walker earlier this year but Walker pulled out. This should be the first proper test for him against a guy who’s mixed at a high level. Nasrat Haqparast vs Quillan Salkilld is a late addition to the card. Got chucked together just over a week out from the show for some reason. Haqparast’s German/Afghan, 30 years old, 18-5 and currently on a five fight win streak. He squeaked a split decision over Esteban Ribovics in his last fight at the Apex in March. Remember that being a fun one, as Ribovics fights pretty much always are, and they got the FOTN bonus. Salkilld’s Australian, 25 years old and has a record of 9-1 with six finishes. He made his UFC debut on the Sydney PPV in February, blasting through Anshul Jubli in just 19 seconds. He followed that with a points win over Yanal Ashmouz in June in a fight I know I must’ve seen but don’t even remember. I dunno. Decent fight if they’d had enough prep time, on this kind of notice though? Who knows what we’re getting? Ikram Aliskerov vs Jun Yong Park is a solid fight. Could be fun. I see a lot of negative takes on Aliskerov but I think he’s alright for his spot in the pecking order at Middleweight. I think the pushback from some was an attempt to shut down any talk of him as some title threat or prospect but I don’t think anyone was really predicting he’d be UFC champion or anything. With MMA fans there’s never a middle ground though. You’re either the second coming or a total bum. There is no in between. He’s 16-2 now and the only losses have been to Khamzat Chimaev in the Brave promotion in 2019, and to Robert Whittaker in a fight he took on short notice on the Saudi card last June. No shame losing to those two. Aside from that he’s scored first round knockouts over Phil Hawes, Warlley Alves and Andre Muniz in his other UFC fights. He’s up against the ‘Iron Turtle’ here. Park’s 34 years old with a 19-6 record. Funny character and he had one or two really entertaining scraps earlier in his UFC career. But he’s not been so great to watch in recent fights. He’s coming into this fight off a couple of decision wins over Brad Tavares and Ismail Naurdiev. Mateusz Rebecki vs Ludovit Klein is gonna be ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** this time. Probably not gonna get much attention going in because of the talking points surrounding the main event but this should be a banger. It’s a cool clash of the blood and guts tough bastard in Rebecki and the technical striker in Klein. Not sure how it’s gonna go. I’d usually favour the technical fighter and I am leaning towards a Klein win here, but Rebecki has a knack for dragging fighters into dogfights and we haven’t really seen Klein in that kind of battle yet. That’s how Rebecki’s last three fights looked. Fuck me. Top one’s after he got battered by Carlos Diego Ferreira, middle one’s the crazy wild bloodbath he had against Myktybek Orolbai, and the bottom one’s from his last fight with Chris Duncan in August. He lost that fight but it was an absolute belter and, for me, one of the best fights of the year so far. Rebecki can’t keep doing this. His last three fights will have taken years off his career. Tough fucker but he’s taken some real punishment over the last year. Klein’s 23-5-1 and coming off a points defeat against Mateusz Gamrot in May. Before that he was on a seven fight unbeaten streak, which included wins over Mason Jones and Ignacio Bahamondes. He’s got some really nice striking, mixes his attacks up and puts combinations together. On paper he should outclass Rebecki here. But fuck knows? Rebecki’s a maniac. Valter Walker vs Louie Sutherland has been cobbled together from the rubble of two cancelled fights. ‘The Clean Monster’ vs ‘The Vanilla Gorilla’. Walker was all set to face Mohammed Usman on the Rio card recently but Usman got yanked from the card at the eleventh hour for a drug test failure. He’s coming into this fight off the back of three first round heel hook finishes in a row over Junior Tafa, Don’Tale Mayes and Kennedy Nzechukwu. OK, granted, these aren’t high level wins but three in a row is pretty nuts, right? I hated Walker’s UFC debut against Lukasz Brzeski last year. Easily one of the worst fights of 2024, and he lost. So it was a bad night all round for Valter. But busting out three consecutive first round heel hooks isn’t a bad way to respond. Don’t see him going much further but at least he tries to end fights quick. Sutherland is making his first Octagon appearance here. He was supposed to debut on the Perth card in late September against Justin Tafa but Tafa pulled out very late in the day and Sutherland got scratched off the card as a result as well. Guess it worked out alright in the end because now he’s on a bigger card. From what I’m reading he’s Scottish, 31 years old and 10-3 with 8 knockouts. Never seen him before but he’s fought in both PFL and Bellator briefly and most recently in a promotion called LFL, he won their Heavyweight title whatever that’s worth. Rugby background apparently, sounds like he’s got a bit more athleticism than your average Heavyweight lump but we’ll see. Interested to see how he does. Surely Valter won’t pull off a fourth straight heel hook? Jose Delgado vs Nathaniel Wood has show stealer potential. Really like the sound of this. Not massively familiar with Delgado but I’ve seen enough. He’s 27 years old and 10-1 with a 100% finish rate. Fought in LFA previously, got a TKO win on DWCS last summer and has fought twice in the UFC so far, going 2-0, both first round finishes. Stopped Connor Matthews in his debut in February, then did this to Hyder Amil at UFC 317 in June… Amil was undefeated going in and Delgado crushed him in just 26 seconds. Instantly made himself must see viewing going forward for me after that one. They’re not messing about with him either, throwing him in with Wood now. Wood’s finally got rid of ‘The Prospect’ nickname. About time really, he’s 32 years old and nearly 30 fights deep in his career! He’s gone with ‘The Last Kingsman’ now for some reason. Whatever. He’s 21-6 and coming off a couple of decision wins over Daniel Pineda and Morgan Charriere. Really good fighter but the knock on him is he’s become a decision merchant. Delgado is obviously the opposite, he’s a natural finisher. So we’ll see how this goes. Wood’s not the type who’s gonna just fold under the first attack so we’ll hopefully get to see more of what Delgado’s about here. If he goes out there and smokes a fighter like Wood, the Featherweight division might have a problem on its hands. Hamdy Abdelwahab vs Chris Barnett. Yeah, hopes aren’t high for this. Might watch it for a laugh though. Usually something silly going on in a ‘Beastboy’ Barnett fight. We last saw him on the Topuria vs Holloway undercard last October and the big sod appeared to fuck his ankle up jumping up and down during the Buffer intros. He got finished by Kennedy Nzechukwu shortly after and hasn’t fought since. He’s 23-9 now, it’s going nowhere, but he’s a fun character to have around and he’s not boring. That goes a long way in the Heavyweight division. Abdelwahab’s Egyptian, 32 years old and 6-1-0-1 so far in his career. He’s had a bit of a shitshow in the UFC. Beat Don’Tale Mayes in his debut in 2022 but then failed a drug test so it got overturned to a No Contest. Came back in February this year and only managed a split decision win over Jamal Pogues. Then in June he lost a decision to Mohammed Usman. Yeah, if you’re going to the wire against the likes of Pogues and Usman, you’re not much good. Hopefully Barnett sparks him. Azat Maksum vs Mitch Raposo I’m neither here nor there on. Maksum’s from Kazakhstan, 30 years old and 15-2 with 9 finishes. Debuted in the UFC in 2023 with a win over Tyson Nam but has lost back-to-back fights since against Charles Johnson and Tagir Ulanbekov. Raposo’s 27 years old with a record of 9-3 and 7 finishes. He’s gone 0-2 in the UFC so far, dropping a couple of split decisions to Andre Lima and Su Mudaerji. It’s Flyweight so it might still be watchable but I can’t say I’m too fussed about it. Jaqueline Amorim vs Mizuki Inoue. Just there really. Amorim’s decent, to be fair. She’s Brazilian, 30 years old and 10-1 with all 10 wins coming inside the distance. Mostly submissions. She’s got some nice grappling. Lost her UFC debut against Sam Hughes, which didn’t fill me with optimism for her but she’s rattled off four wins and four finishes since then. She comes into this fight off three straight submissions over Cory McKenna, Vanessa Demopoulos and Polyana Viana. I can hardly even remember Inoue. She’s 31 years old and 15-6, all finishes, but she’s been on the UFC roster since 2019 and has only fought three times in those six years. She beat Wu Yanan in her UFC debut, then lost to Amanda Lemos, then beat Hannah Goldy in September 2023 and that’s the last we’ve seen of her. She actually fought Virna Jandiroba for the Invicta belt back in 2018 and lost on points. Tom Aspinall when he sees Jones and Gane… Edited October 25, 2025 by wandshogun09 Quote
Dai Posted September 18, 2025 Posted September 18, 2025 (edited) Outstanding write up for the main event, worthy of a highly anticipated super fight, but the reality of it is that it features Gane who has looked shite in his last few fights, and has shit the bed when it was time to step up to the big occasion. His performance against Jones must surely be the worst performance ever in a UFC title fight. Cant see how anyone could pick Gane in this one, as theres surely nothing tangible you can say that gives him the advantage over Tom, other than "its heavyweight and he has a punchers chance". Edited September 18, 2025 by Dai Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 18, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted September 18, 2025 (edited) 1 hour ago, Dai said: Cant see how anyone could pick Gane in this one, as theres surely nothing tangible you can say that gives him the advantage over Tom, other than "its heavyweight and he has a punchers chance". Yeah, from what I’m seeing though a lot of people seem to be picking Gane. It’s amazing how all I used to see on social media about Gane was how shit he was but now he’s booked against Aspinall all these new Gane fans have suddenly spawned out of nowhere. Obviously Jones fans in disguise, desperate for him to lose to anyone so they can somehow claim the win for Jones and spin it to justify him ducking. ‘See, Jones would’ve beat him anyway’. Even if Aspinall somehow loses this fight, that doesn’t make Jones ducking him look any better. It actually makes it worse in a way. Then you’ve ducked a guy who couldn’t beat Gane! Either way, history will show he ran away and retired because he was shit scared of losing to Aspinall. As for the fight itself, even the puncher’s chance thing, Gane’s got some power but in a shootout you’d favour Aspinall. I find Gane a really weird striker to watch because, given that he started as a Kickboxer, you’d think he’d look a lot better than he does and be outclassing these Heavyweights left and right. There’s no consistency to his striking though. The punch he knocked out Tuivasa with was a beauty. But then you watch his finishing sequence against Spivac and it’s a fucking mess. It got the job done because it was Spivac who just covered up and accepted his fate. But it was hilarious watching Gane throwing uncoordinated backhands and stuff. Looking at his fights it really seems like his striking has gradually got worse over the course of his UFC career. The interesting thing for me will be if Gane is able to piss about and make this fight go longer. We’ve got no idea what an Aspinall in the third, fourth and fifth rounds will look like. For all we know he could completely fall to bits the first time he’s extended past the 10 minute mark. I don’t think so but we just don’t know. I really hope Aspinall just wipes Gane out quick though. I wanna see him tested but not this time. I’d love nothing more than to see him bulldoze Gane exactly one second faster than Jones beat him, so the Jones arse lickers have got nothing to cling to. Let them cry a bit longer then sit back and watch them all turn into Volkov or Almeida fans all of a sudden. Edited September 18, 2025 by wandshogun09 Quote
Bruce85 Posted September 18, 2025 Posted September 18, 2025 Another cracking write up Wand! Overall a solid card but it’s all about the main event! Even if the heavyweight division isn’t having it’s strongest era it’s still a big deal to see the champ in action, especially with it being Aspinall. As for the fight itself, I can’t look past Aslinall by KO, as Dai said, outside a punchers chance there is just nothing tangible to make me think Gane can win this one. I guess although Tom has been training he hasn’t been actively fighting so maybe if Gane can drag him into the later rounds he might have a chance but even then I’m not sure Gane has a gas tank to do it. Annoyingly my selfish mate has his birthday on this weekend so I won’t be able to watch this one live, did ask him to move his birthday but he’s not having it. I’ll try to stay spoiler free and watch it on the Sunday. Quote
jimufctna24 Posted September 18, 2025 Posted September 18, 2025 I agree with @wandshogun09 that I would be interested to see how Aspinall fares with being taken past the 2nd round. All Aspinall's fights have not gone past the 2nd round since 2013 when he was an amateur. Granted, that is mostly because he bombs out of his opponents very quickly but I would be interested to see how he copes if someone can drag him into deeper waters. I've wondered for a while whether even the current version of Jones could weather an early storm and knick a decision against Aspinall, as to date Jones has had a good chin and stamina (not that I would want Jones to win of course). It's a shame we will probably never know. I haven't watched Gane's most recent bouts. Is his grappling still very weak? Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 18, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted September 18, 2025 (edited) 3 hours ago, jimufctna24 said: I've wondered for a while whether even the current version of Jones could weather an early storm and knick a decision against Aspinall, as to date Jones has had a good chin and stamina (not that I would want Jones to win of course). It's a shame we will probably never know. That’s the thing, I kind of feel like Aspinall beats Jones but it’s not like I’m confident in it. The main reason I wanted to see that fight was because it was clearly the biggest test for both of them. There’s nobody in the Heavyweight division today who poses the kind of threat to Jones that Aspinall does. And there’s nobody in the division who has the kind of skillset to test and ask questions of Aspinall like Jones would. Even a post-prime Jones. I could absolutely see a scenario where Jones beats Aspinall. It’s never been about discrediting Jones’ skills for me. It’s frustration that he ran from the real fight. Arguably twice if you believe he also avoided Ngannou. Always baffles me that his fans cheer his duckery on and do mental gymnastics to try to twist things to justify it. Fight fans today must be different. Wouldn’t you want your favourite fighter to face the best out there? As big of a fan as I was of Wandy or Shogun or Cro Cop, whoever, there was never a potential opponent, no matter how tough the fight might be, that I actively wanted them to avoid just so they wouldn’t take a loss. I wanted to see them fight everyone. It’s weirdo behaviour. The only thing I can think is that they’re more fans of a specific fighter than they are of the sport itself. Like the McGregor fans who stopped watching when he dropped off. 3 hours ago, jimufctna24 said: I haven't watched Gane's most recent bouts. Is his grappling still very weak? Yeah. I just rewatched his most recent fight against Volkov, just to make sure I remembered it right and so I’m not talking bollocks on it here. And yeah, he was being taken down and controlled by Volkov. And the times he did get on top, he’d do stupid shit like going from what should be an advantageous position standing over a grounded Volkov, to randomly plopping down for a heel hook and completely losing position. He spent ages in the third round going for a Kimura from the bottom that wasn’t in as well. Volkov had half guard and Gane’s just laying there for a big chunk of the round loosely holding onto a shit Kimura grip instead of trying to escape the position. He lost that round on all three judges scorecards as a result. I’m sure he did the same thing with the heel hook at a crucial point in the Ngannou fight and it cost him there as well. This happened in the fight as well, which I forgot about… Thought Gane looked pretty poor all round in this fight, to be honest. Part of it’s probably because Volkov was better than in their first fight, but I do think Gane’s gone backwards a bit as well. Don’t get me wrong, he landed a few good punches himself in the fight but his striking looked worse than usual to me overall and combined with his lack of progress in the grappling and his weird decision making, I definitely feel like he’s regressed. He’s 35 as well. It’s not like he’s gonna be getting any better at this stage in his career. Edited September 18, 2025 by wandshogun09 Quote
JakeRobertsParoleOfficer Posted September 19, 2025 Posted September 19, 2025 First off...awesome Pro level write-up, better than alot of outlets covering it!! Onto Aspinall vs Gane. Really feel for Aspinall, and one of the reasons why I think white has lost it Aspinall has beaten most of the top 10, and yet was made to wait for JJ (who was never going to fight him), and then rather than get a glorious 'promoted to full champion' media conference, white announces it late at night on some nondescript shows post fight and doesn't even bother letting Aspinall know in advance!!! Utterly shameful behaviour. White's constant c**k sucking of Jones is rediculous. PEDs, drugs, domestic violence, hit and run of pregnant woman??? He should have been f****d off years ago!!! Now people will say about Mike Tyson...yes he did some bad things but he was generating massive millions and I get it (and alot Moffat people can see how he was cheated, robbed setup, conned etc) why promoters went with it as he was and still is a global name...everyone knows him Outside of MMA no one knows Jones and hes not a draw! White has acted like hed rather Aspinall not be there, and served him up a shitty opponent who Jones beat in seconds and coming off a robbery of Volkov!!! Really hope Aspinall smokes him double quick and we can actually get to see the UFC heavyweight title mean something again!! Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 19, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted September 19, 2025 1 hour ago, JakeRobertsParoleOfficer said: Really hope Aspinall smokes him double quick and we can actually get to see the UFC heavyweight title mean something again!! Problem is though, there’s not much to work with in the Heavyweight division to make the title mean anything. The division Aspinall’s inherited is the shits. As much as the criticisms of Gane are valid, he’s still actually one of the better fighters in the division! Look at the state of this… Of that lot, Aspinall’s already pissed through Volkov, Pavlovich, Blaydes, Spivac and Tybura. Beat them in such a way that rematches seem almost pointless. A Volkov rematch is bound to happen at some point just because Volkov’s good enough to get there. But if Aspinall beats Gane, what’s left? A Volkov rematch or Almeida. Decent fights but not the type that are gonna revive the division. After that he’s left with dullards like Waldo Acosta and Gaziev? Squash matches against Lewis or Tuivasa? No hopers like Teixeira and Walker? Then there’s Delija and Parkin who are Aspinall’s close mates and training partners so most likely not an option. He’s good for this Gane fight and the winner of Volkov vs Almeida. That’s two fights. After that, it’s fucking desperate times. The shitty thing is, when Aspinall signed with the UFC back in 2020, you had Stipe Miocic, Francis Ngannou and Daniel Cormier still knocking around in the title picture. At that point, that’s what Aspinall would’ve seen as his future. He’d have thought that by the time he got to the title race, he’d be mixing with that lot and having big fights. And there was always the talk of Jon Jones coming back so that was, in theory, a fourth big name for him to look forward to. Fast forward five years and he’s got none of them. Fuck all. Cormier retired before Aspinall climbed the ranks, Ngannou had the bad split with the UFC, Stipe fell off and eventually retired and Jones shat his pants and didn’t want any of him. He’s inherited the absolute dregs of the Heavyweight division. He’s been fucked up the arse by, mostly unfortunate timing, and also one big dirty woman beating, drug test failing, fight dodging duck. No matter what Aspinall does from here on in, he’s not gonna get the credit because he doesn’t have a quality pool of challengers to boost his resume/legacy. And the bad news is I don’t even think there’s really anyone new coming up in the smaller leagues who looks promising. The division is on its arse and it’s a wider problem than just the UFC. There’s no feeder league that’s really producing new blood in the Heavyweight division. I’d say they could bring Ngannou back but Dana shot that down recently because he’s a fucking childish idiot who puts his own grudges over everything. Quote
jimufctna24 Posted September 19, 2025 Posted September 19, 2025 Nemkov re-signing with PFL a few weeks back, despite having talks with the UFC, is also very frustrating. Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 19, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted September 19, 2025 (edited) 35 minutes ago, jimufctna24 said: Nemkov re-signing with PFL a few weeks back, despite having talks with the UFC, is also very frustrating. Yep. Typical UFC bullshit we’ve come to expect these days as well. I saw Nemkov was saying the UFC’s offer was “half” what PFL was offering him to stay and he said their reasoning was that because they don’t really hold events in Russia anymore, they didn’t need any more Russian fighters. Some bollocks like that. Didn’t realise there was a quota on how many fighters they wanna sign from a specific country. Shouldn’t it be about signing the best fighters? Isn’t that what Dana says, that the UFC is “where the best fight the best”? Joke. While we’re talking Heavyweights though and since it’s a Gane fight thread, look at this bastard… His name’s Dave Fotsing, 22 years old apparently and 2-0 so far in MMA. Where does Fernand Lopez keep finding these monsters? First Ngannou, then Gane, now this guy? What’s he feeding them? For context, here’s a pic of him dwarfing Gane… And Gane’s no delicate little munchkin himself. Not going back on my words about the lack of true prospects coming up in the Heavyweight division though. This guy could turn out to be a sheep in wolf’s clothing. We’ve been had a bunch of times with new Heavies that look the part and turn out to be just as shite as the useless blobs which populate the rest of the division outside the Top 5. It’s mad to me how Fernand Lopez keeps finding these cyborgs though. Is he growing them in a lab or something? Edited September 19, 2025 by wandshogun09 Quote
jimufctna24 Posted September 19, 2025 Posted September 19, 2025 To make matters even worse, Ngannou seemingly has little interest in competing in MMA at the moment. He's apparently more interested in arranging a boxing bout with Wilder. So we probably will not even get a Ngannou vs Nemkov bout in the foreseeable future (I suspect Ngannou would win for what it's worth). So for now, Asp vs Gane is probably as good as it gets at heavyweight. Quote
Paid Members Carbomb Posted September 19, 2025 Paid Members Posted September 19, 2025 Only other HW bout I can think of right now that has any value would be a rubber match with Blaydes, but it's a real stretch. Unless the UFC pull their fingers out and get some new talent in, Aspinall would be best served jumping to the PFL. At least there's Malykhin, Reug Reug, and maybe Ngannou over there. Quote
Dai Posted September 20, 2025 Posted September 20, 2025 When a match with Curtis Blaydes is talked about as one of the only options of a desirable fight, you know youre in deep shit. Wasnt it someone who posts here who said the lack of heavyweight talent is because if youre that big (physcially) of an athlete, then there are many more sports to choose from where you can make the serious cash, and seeing the shit payouts the UFC gives means its not a worthy pursuit to train for? If things get so bad then I wonder if they will ever think about doing a 225 division, just so it could tease some 205ers to jump up. Aspinal has the shitty end of the stick with timing, as this division is crap, and not only that but its crap without any decent names too, which is double as bad. Boxing was brought up, I wonder if Aspinal is already thinking about those novelty boxing matches where he can make some serious cash. Now more than ever, with the boxing links it has, then if he puts the feelers out there he should be able to have a couple of big fights to fund his retirement. Quote
Paid Members Bus Surfer Posted September 20, 2025 Paid Members Posted September 20, 2025 I would imagine we're gonna see Gable Steveson popping up at some point soon. The UFC will no doubt get right behind him. Heavyweight is pretty shallow, but there'll always been new guys coming through, as slow as that is and as low as their ceiling maybe, we'll get 1 or 2 decent prospects surely. Talking of Aspinall going to PFL is just nonsense. Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 20, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted September 20, 2025 (edited) 35 minutes ago, Dai said: I wonder if Aspinal is already thinking about those novelty boxing matches where he can make some serious cash. Not sure if Tom is but his Dad’s definitely thinking about it. This quote’s from just a couple of weeks ago… Thing is, even if he wants to do it, he’s under UFC lock and key and he’d need their backing. Which he’s very unlikely to get now. Dana was asked at the Canelo vs Crawford press conference about whether we’d see Boxing vs UFC crossovers like Mayweather vs McGregor in the future and he just said something like “I hope not.” And considering Aspinall’s basically the only good thing the UFC’s Heavyweight division has going for it at the moment, they’d be mad to risk him getting shown up or knocked out in a high profile Boxing match. I guess the Turki connection could make it more likely but I just can’t see it myself. 8 minutes ago, Bus Surfer said: I would imagine we're gonna see Gable Steveson popping up at some point soon. The UFC will no doubt get right behind him. Yep. Rape allegations against him as well so he’s exactly what the UFC are looking for these days. Edited September 20, 2025 by wandshogun09 Quote
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