UFC 321: Aspinall vs Gane - Oct 25 ??

[Dai]

Yeah, everything on the main card, with the exception of the opener, was completely and instantly forgettable. Thats never a good thing for a PPV.

The Volkov match was atrocious, and the Dern/Umar matches were just there. Nothing exciting, and matches everyone will have already forgot about. 

The Tom/Gane ending was such a shame, as it looked to be building nicely to a good fight, where we were going to get answers about Tom's gas tank, and how good his fight IQ is, based on how he would have adapted to Gane being pretty successful standing up, up until that point. All of that was taken from us. These things happen, and I dont think Gane has ever had previous for this, so you have to rack it up to Gane being lazy with his hands, and Tom being at the wrong place at the wrong time. The fact that we wont see this again now until well into next year is very annoying too.

[Kfogg1991]

The absolute heartbreak with how the main event went was unbelievable, too everyone claiming tom used it as an excuse to get out the fight can fuck themselves and don't comprehend who there talking about here, he's not fought for over a year because of Jon Jones and this was his first fight back and defending the undisputed heavyweight title that he was denied from Dana but the entire world believed he was the actual champion... why would that human being want that way out of a fight..... absolute nonsense and stupidity by everyone saying it and fuck Dana with his response and attitude towards him at the post fight presser aswell....

With only two ppv's left this year this has to go down as one of the most disappointing and underwhelming year's in the history of the company. The constant bad luck and below par cards..... fights falling apart days before..... and proof of huge parts of things throughout the organisation that has become noticeable as a result is unreal coming out of last year which felt huge and so big in every sense for them into this year that's been flat and uninspired.

Let's hope the new espn era breathes life into them again outside the one Whitehouse card which is already dominating everything completely 

[wandshogun09]

This is gonna be a long post.

I’ve given it a few days, watched the fight a few times and it hasn’t got any less disappointing and deflating. Massive anti-climax. Where do you even start with this?

I don’t even get why there’s a debate about this. It’s an open and shut case. That’s about as blatant and egregious an eye poke as you’ll ever see in MMA. Both eyes poked and gouging further into the eye sockets after the initial contact is made. This bit shouldn’t even be a talking point but it is. There are idiots actually trying to mimimise this and excuse Gane. All to run with the narrative that Aspinall wasn’t hurt that bad and just “quit” because he didn’t like the way the fight was going. It’s so obvious what it’s about. It’s Jon Jones fans who were just waiting for anything they could latch onto to shit on Aspinall. If he’d won but took longer to beat Gane than Jones did, they’d criticise him for that. If he lost, they’d obviously have been all over that. But this was arguably better than a loss for the sad cunts. Now they can label Aspinall a quitter. It’s only been three days and the whole thing is already exhausting.

I’ll go ahead and admit right now, in the short time the fight lasted, Gane was doing better than I expected him to. It couldn’t have started a lot better for him and popping Aspinall’s nose was a good visual in his favour. He was looking pretty sharp early. Which only makes how it all ended all the more annoying. In the four and a bit minutes it lasted, it looked like we were finally gonna get to see Aspinall in a proper fight. He was bloody, it was about to go to the second round, things were just getting interesting. Then Gane and his pokey fingers fucked it all up. And just to be clear in case anyone missed it, the fight ending eye pokes in the gif above weren’t even the first eye pokes of the fight.

This was earlier in the round, Gane stopped Aspinall’s attempt at a takedown by throwing his extended fingers in his face. It didn’t find the mark but the intent was there. I find it hard to believe any of this was accidental. This or the actual gouging that ended the fight. When you watch it back, it literally looks like he’s using the outstretched fingers as part of his gameplan. Either to actually poke the eyes or, failing that, at the very least use it as a deterrent so Aspinall will be hesitant to try to close the distance on him. Regardless, it’s Gane all over isn’t it? He finally has a title fight where he looks good, so he sabotages himself. Either way, whether it was truly accidental or on purpose, he’s either a reckless idiot or a dirty cheat.

The fallout has been mind numbing but not surprising. Gane was doing well and I’d say was well on his way to winning that round. But the way some are talking, you’d think it was Ivan Drago butchering Apollo Creed in Rocky IV. You’d think Aspinall was being massacred out there. It was a competitive round, Aspinall tagged him with some good shots himself. Gane just got the better of it. Of that round. The first round of a potential five! There was a lot of fight left to go. Yet you’d think it was an impossible task for Aspinall the way some are talking. It’s actually hilarious how delusional it is. I love the way a bloody nose is suddenly the barometer for dominance now. Apparently you can’t come back to win a fight if your nose bleeds a bit in round one.

The “quitter” bollocks conversation is one of the worst things about following combat sports for me. I hate it in Boxing, I hate it in MMA. Just the worst. From fans who’ve mostly never thrown or taken a punch in their life calling pro fighters pussies to other pro fighters piling on and seemingly taking great pleasure in shitting on a fighter and basically branding them a coward. That might be worse than uneducated, Twitter hard case fans doing it, to be honest. A fighter joining in mocking another fighter, when they know what it feels like to be in there, feels extra grubby and low to me. No-one seems to enjoy a pile-on quite like other pro fighters when one of their own is being labelled a quitter. 

In this Aspinall case we’ve seen Chael Sonnen, Anthony Smith and Aljamain Sterling talking absolute cobblers about Aspinall ‘quitting’. Couldn’t wait to stick the boot in. There’s probably more fighters singing that tune as well, I just haven’t seen it. For one, Chael’s tapped out AKA ‘quit’ nine times in his career. He had a rep earlier in his career for being prone to submissions. If there was a triangle choke in the vicinity, Chael would stick his head in it. Rarely saw an opportunity to tap that he didn’t take when it came to crunch time. Then there’s Smith, the man known for curling up in the foetal position more than once accepting defeat, yet calls himself ‘Lionheart’. Hilarious that he’s had the nerve to chirp up on this. Aljo’s probably the most disappointing one for me, expected better from him. Especially because he knows what it’s like to be accused of faking injury when he ate that illegal knee from Petr Yan. He got piled on for that yet now he’s jumping at the chance to dump on Aspinall. 

On the flipside, the likes of Paul Felder, Jim Miller and Matt Brown have been talking sense on this. Miller’s the man with the most fights in UFC history and is in the top four of most cage time in UFC history. You know what he’s never done? Poked someone in the eye.

Couldn’t agree more with him. In 46 UFC fights and 7h29m of Octagon time, he’s never poked anyone in the eye. And some of these fuckers are serial offenders. Gane had two in a four minute fight here, for fuck’s sake.

Unsurprisingly, Dana’s been a prick about it. Said something at the press conference after about “Tom didn’t wanna continue the fight”. Which isn’t wrong technically of course but it’s the way he said it. Leaves out the fact that he couldn’t fucking see and just basically says he’s a fanny who wanted out. Top promoter there! He’s useless at actually promoting his fighters. Insinuates his Heavyweight champion is a coward then will expect people to still care when Aspinall next fights. There’s been a lot of talk of a Dana vs Eddie Hearn battle of promoters lately and stuff like this just highlights the difference between them. For all Eddie’s faults, you’d never see him just shit on his own fighter like Dana does. Imagine Eddie coming out after AJ lost to Ruiz and going “yeah AJ didn’t want it, he was looking for a way out”? Dana just throws guys under the bus the second they don’t do everything to his liking and burns bridges left and right. I think there might be a rift brewing behind the scenes between Dana and Aspinall anyway. Aspinall said recently that he’d never fight Ante Delija because they’re close friends and teammates, he said he’d vacate the belt rather than fight him. You know Dana hates that. Then this week, Aspinall’s dad was publicly saying he wants Tom to go into Boxing when his current UFC contract is done. Again, the kind of thing Dana’s gonna change colour over. So I get the feeling things might’ve been a bit frosty between Dana and Aspinall going into this fight, then the way the fight itself played out has only added to it.

In the end, I don’t blame Aspinall one bit for not continuing in that state. It’s easy for people to sit and criticise but in his position, he’d already been sat on ice for well over a year while the UFC dicked about with Jones, he did everything that was asked of him and lost a huge chunk of his career as a result. And when he finally comes back he gets his eyes gouged out in the first round. Sure he could have fought on but why should he fight at a disadvantage and let the guy who committed the foul and cheated have the advantage? If he fought on, unable to see properly, and got knocked out, nobody would give a shit that he’d been gouged. It’d just go down as a KO loss and there goes the title. Let’s face it, there was a section of the fanbase (and evidently some hating fighters) who went in with an agenda and were gonna shit on Aspinall no matter what he did. It just so happened that the outcome provided them with more ammo than even a loss would have. Hopefully we get the rematch and Aspinall absolutely steamrolls him in 30 seconds.

Mackenzie Dern got the job done. Decent enough to watch. Wasn’t pretty at times but the effort was always there and it wasn’t boring.

You know the UFC were happy with this result. They can work with Dern as champ. Personally I was a bit disappointed in Jandiroba’s performance myself. She was having a bit of success with the takedowns but never really capitalised on it once she got Dern down. I get that she probably didn’t fancy her chances of catching Dern in a submission but I felt like she could’ve at least done more with ground and pound to make those moments in top position count more. At 37 years old, this was probably her only shot at winning UFC gold. I can’t see her getting another one. Dern looked good though. She was better on the feet and obviously had the grappling to deal with whatever Jandiroba threw at her. I wouldn’t say either are complete fighters but Dern just has a bit more to her game than Jandiroba. Feel a bit foolish picking Jandiroba to win this fight in hindsight. Think that was wishful thinking more than anything because I would’ve liked to have seen her hold that belt just once before it’s all done and dusted. Lovely moment in the cage after with Dern and her daughter. Nice to see that. Not sure how long Dern can hold onto the belt though. Or who she’ll fight next. With Zhang Weili off to Flyweight, I get the feeling we’re about to see the Strawweight belt become a right hot potato. I think a lot of the Top 5 can beat each other on any given night. Maybe Dern vs Tatiana Suarez next? There’s not many options. Watching this fight I couldn’t help thinking just how far ahead Zhang really was of the rest of the division. I’ve got no doubts she’d have battered the pair of these two, probably on the same night back-to-back.

Maybe I’m alone on this but I really liked the Umar vs Bautista fight. Maybe it just looked better to me because it followed the Volkov vs Almeida dud but I enjoyed it a lot. A lot of grappling but it was night and day compared to the bullshit Almeida was doing in the previous fight. Fast paced and some of the scrambles and transitions were beautiful. Really nice win for Umar over a guy who’s a bit underrated in Bautista in my opinion. He’s not easy to look good against and I think Umar did. He needed this coming off the Merab loss. Saw a quote from him saying he’d be “thankful” if he got the Merab rematch next but if not he’s happy to fight another top contender and that he “needs time and experience to get better”. I like it. That’s a much more healthy and realistic attitude to have than just constantly wanting to get another title shot without taking time to improve and fix holes in your game. So many fighters will lose a title fight and want back in immediately, and I get it, but it rarely works out well. Umar’s got time. He gave Merab a tougher fight than most last time and the more time he takes to gain experience, the older Merab gets and Umar’s chances surely improve. He named Figgy and Zahabi as potential opponents for his next fight. I like either of them and I think he wins both.

Volkov vs Almeida was a terrible fight to watch. Almeida is so frustrating to watch. Clearly has a strong ground game but in certain fights he just opts to do sod all when he gets on top. We saw similar in his rotter against Derrick Lewis a couple of years ago. Did he even throw any ground strikes here? He must’ve thrown some, I haven’t looked for the stats, but Christ. He seemed to think he’d win this fight entirely on top control and nothing else. He was doing no damage whatsoever. I was pleasantly surprised when the judges scored it for Volkov. It wasn’t a great showing from him either but at least he was landing strikes from his back and he was throwing those big knees to the body in the clinch whichever round that was. He was actively trying to make stuff happen at least. Even if Almeida had got the decision here, I highly doubt the UFC would’ve been putting him anywhere near a title shot after this shite. Thank fuck this wasn’t five rounds because Jailton was never gonna finish that fight. If it was unlimited rounds like those old Gracie matches, it’d still be going on now, maybe Volkov would finally KO him with an upkick around Thursday or something.

Azamat Murzakanov stopping Aleksandar Rakic in a round was big for him. Rakic has had a wobbly run in the UFC and he’s not elite but on paper this was Murzakanov’s big step up fight and Rakic was way bigger than him physically. The initial exchanges had me thinking it was gonna be a bad night for Murzakanov. Rakic just looked too big, too rangey and was blasting those kicks in. Then right when I started thinking that, he walked onto a short right and that was that. Just shows the power Murzakanov possesses because it didn’t look like much but I guess Rakic moving into it made it worse. Interested to see who they match Murzakanov up with next. His takedown defence looked pretty solid here and it’s obvious he packs a punch. I’d love to see him and Khalil Rountree throw down.

Quillan Salkilld busted out what will surely have to rank high in the Knockout Of The Year conversation with his headkick obliteration of Nasrat Haqparast…

Fuck. Me. One of the scariest knockouts I’ve ever seen in all my years watching this shit. One of those knockouts where you genuinely start getting the feeling you’ve just seen someone die in there. I literally was thinking that for a couple of minutes. The way Haqparast fell, the way his legs were twitching, how long he was out, the cameras staying off him and there was a point when the commentators suddenly started talking in somber tones and you could see Salkilld looking concerned. Thankfully Haqparast came to just after that and was sitting up and stuff. Scary though. Terrifying KO. Hopefully Haqparast’s alright. Salkilld is one of the breakthrough UFC newcomers for me this year. He hasn’t beat anyone really notable yet but he scored a 19 second KO in his debut, won his next fight on points, then this. He’s definitely someone to keep an eye on going into 2026.

Ludovit Klein vs Mateusz Rebecki was pretty much exactly as I pictured it in my head when it was announced. Rebecki doesn’t know any other way than to just come forward and eat punishment just for the opportunity to dish some out himself. It always felt like a fight Klein should win, just because he’s the much cleaner and more technical striker. But Rebecki is such a bulldog and such a tough bastard he just wouldn’t go away and that makes his fights wildly entertaining. He had a big third round as well. Despite Klein being the more technically sound fighter and being 2-0 up, Rebecki’s persistence, refusal to fuck off and just general hardness finally seemed to wear on Klein a bit later in the fight and he was hanging on for dear life at the end there.

Crazy scenes. When the winner can’t even stand up for the Buffer announcement you know it was a scrap and a half. Klein messed his ankle up in the mayhem and Rebecki, face pissing blood as usual, really put it on him late. I actually had this fight a draw like the one judge. Obviously I had Klein taking the first two rounds but I gave Rebecki a 10-8 for the third. So a draw. Gnarly fight though. Again for Rebecki. It’s incredible to watch but he’s gotta calm down. This is four fights in a row now he’s came out with a face like a plate of spare ribs. As exciting and edge of the seat as his fights are to watch, I dread to think of the state he’s gonna be in when he retires. Hopefully he’s in a position where he can take some time off now. He’s had four gruelling, bloody fights like this on the trot and this one came just a couple of months after his war with Chris Duncan in August. Two bloodbaths like that in that short a timeframe is especially brutal.

Valter Walker has officially won me around! What the actual fuck is this lunatic? FOUR first round heel hook finishes in a row?! How long can he extend this streak?

What’s going on? I remember hating his UFC debut against Lukasz Brzeski last year. The fight was one of the worst of last year and Valter looked out of shape, performed like dogshit and lost on points. It was awful. Don’t know what was up with him that night but he’s redeemed himself for me. Still not convinced he’s going on some big run but I’m all in on this heel hook streak now. Three in a row was mad enough, when he dropped back here and started going for Sutherland’s leg, I couldn’t believe it. Four on the trot!

The post-fight interview topped it off. Just nonsensical mad rambling but oddly entertaining. He reminded me of when Andre The Giant tried to talk English in promos. First talking Portuguese then cutting off the translator and going “I speak English too”, then him calling out Hamdy Abdelwahab for next month’s Qatar card killed me. Apparently he wasn’t impressed with Hamdy’s performance against Chris Barnett earlier in the night. “Yeah you take down this Peppa Pig…Chocolate Peppa Pig…and you think you have wrestling. Let’s go, show me wrestling. I’m ready, I’m here.” ? the fight won’t happen but I’m converted now. I’m a Valter fan.

Nathaniel Wood vs Jose Delgado, as expected, was a banger. Really enjoyed this fight. First round was a rollercoaster with Delgado scoring the knockdown with the spinning backfist, then Wood coming back with a knockdown of his own. Barmy round. Cracking fight overall. Happy to see Wood get the win but I’ll be honest, live I felt like Delgado won. I wasn’t concentrating on bits of it closely though because the kids were running riot. But all three judges had the second and third rounds for Wood and I didn’t see any negative reaction to him getting the nod so I guess I was off with my read on the fight watching live.

The Hamdy Abdelwahab vs Chris Barnett was typical low level Heavyweight slop. As embarrassing at times as it was amusing at others. Just a mess. Hamdy clearly won, even with the point deduction for elbowing the fuck out of the back of Barnett’s head, that’s how lopsided it was. But it was shite, proper amateur hour stuff, and the fact Hamdy couldn’t put Barnett away despite being so dominant wasn’t a good look. And speaking of things that weren’t a good look…

Barnett must’ve seen all the praise Mackenzie Dern’s arse got after the weigh in and thought he’d try to compete. I read Hamdy has been sacked even despite the win. It’s always a bit odd when they bin someone coming off a win but I can’t say I’m upset about it one bit. He’s been rotten to watch throughout his UFC stint, and that included a lengthy layoff for PEDs. I did think they might keep him around for that Valter Walker fight though. Dana even mentioned they’d think about doing it on the upcoming Qatar card like Valter was asking for. Guess they’ve got other plans for Valter though. 


In closing, I’ve gotta say, we shit on the refs when they’re bad so it’s only right to highlight when they do a good job. I thought the reffing was mostly excellent on this card. After the absolute shitshow in Vancouver last week with Dan Miragliotta, it felt like the refs came in with heightened awareness here to really be on the ball policing fouls. Obviously the main event was fucked up but I thought Marc Goddard and Rich Mitchell were both great on this card. Didn’t take any bullshit when it came to cheating whatsoever. Mitchell took a point immediately for the blatant fence grab in the Maksum vs Raposo fight on the prelims and Goddard was all over everything in the fights he reffed. Both UK boys as well. 

Edited October 28, 2025 by wandshogun09

[jimufctna24]

As others have pointed out, fighters can frame effectively by positioning their thumb down while doing so, and in turn, limiting the possibility of eye poking. Slack cited Izzy as a fighter who was excellent at this a few days ago. However, Gane seemingly framed by leading with his fingers stretched out, which obviously increases the possibility of eye pokes.

I don't think he intended to eye poke Aspinall, it was just poor/risky technique, which probably cost him an excellent, and probably final, chance of becoming champion. 

 

Edited October 29, 2025 by jimufctna24

[wandshogun09]

I think Gane’s getting one more chance Jim. No way they don’t do the rematch now. Unfinished business and an Aspinall vs Gane rematch now, with the way this one ended, has way more juice than it did going into this first fight. Not like there’s a lot else going on either. The thinking going in was that the winner of Volkov vs Almeida would be next up for the winner of Aspinall vs Gane but with how shite that Volkov vs Almeida fight was, it’s not like fans are gonna be beating down the doors to see Aspinall vs Volkov 2. As fucked up a situation as it all is, the Gane rematch is the way to go.

While I’m here, back on the subject of Valter Walker for a second. If him pulling off four straight first round heel hooks wasn’t crazy enough, apparently he’d never won via heel hook before this recent streak of them. Makes it even madder.

[Carbomb]

Are Almeida and Walker team buddies? Because if not, I'd be intrigued by a match between them - and how long has it been since anyone could say they'd be interested in a non-title HW bout between two submission specialists?

[wandshogun09]

7 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Are Almeida and Walker team buddies?

No. Not sure who Almeida trains with these days but I’m sure he still trains in Brazil. Valter fights out of Xtreme Couture in Vegas alongside his brother as far as I know but I think he does some training in Russia as well. I’d be interested to see how they’d match up but I’ve got a feeling Jailton would smother him. I’m not sure how much there actually is to Valter’s grappling or if he’s just a very effective one trick pony. I think Jailton would be too good a grappler to get caught in Valter’s traps but I’d love to see it. 

Just noticed on Valter’s Sherdog page, apparently he’s changed his nickname from ‘The Clean Monster’ to ‘The Foot Hunter’. Fully committing to the gimmick, although ‘Foot Hunter’ sounds a bit pervy and a bit Snitsky.

[Carbomb]

Not bad, although if I was choosing a nickname based on heel submissions, I'd want to be called "The Bear Trap".

[wandshogun09]

I didn’t realise just how many fouls Gane has committed during his MMA career. It’s not letting me embed but there’s a video on Twitter of him fouling a whole bunch in quite a few of his fights. Multiple eye pokes, kicks to the bollocks, lots of punching the back of the head. There was one clip of him finishing Junior Dos Santos where he twats him with a huge elbow directly in the back of the head/base of the skull and I didn’t recall just how bad it was.

He also managed to kick Jon Jones in the nuts just seven seconds into their fight, which I had no recollection of. As short as that fight was and as little offence as he got in, he still squeezed a foul in there! I never had Gane down as a particularly dirty fighter but some of those old clips don’t paint a good picture. Whether he’s intentionally setting out to do it or he’s just sloppy is irrelevant really. The fouls still effect and change the course of these fights and he’s had very little punishment for it throughout his career. 

[Carbomb]

Jones is the one guy I don't mind him cheating against, if he was cheating - not just because Jones is a cunt, but because I'm fairly sure he's an eye-gouger as well. That first fight against DC, Cormier was having quite a bit of success getting in under his reach and piecing him up with body shots, and then there was an eye-poke - after which, Cormier seemed to just lose all momentum.

Knowing the kind of turd Jones is, I would not be surprised to find out he's been deliberately cheating with those eye-pokes all this time.

Edited October 30, 2025 by Carbomb
Paddy Crerand

[wandshogun09]

Oh Jones is one of the worst ever for it. A big part of how he controls distance is by shoving his outstretched fingers in opponents faces so they can’t or are put off trying to get in close. I’m sure he’s even admitted in the past that it’s a deliberate tactic he uses. It was actually one of the first things I thought when this Aspinall vs Gane fight ended how it did. That Jones might see more of a path to victory against Aspinall now Gane’s managed to use one of Jones’ main weapons on him. 

[Carbomb]

1 minute ago, wandshogun09 said:

Oh Jones is one of the worst ever for it. A big part of how he controls distance is by shoving his outstretched fingers in opponents faces so they can’t or are put off trying to get in close. I’m sure he’s even admitted in the past that it’s a deliberate tactic he uses. It was actually one of the first things I thought when this Aspinall vs Gane fight ended how it did. That Jones might see more of a path to victory against Aspinall now Gane’s managed to use one of Jones’ main weapons on him. 

That's fucking disgraceful. If it's something he's admitted to, I'm surprised the officials keep letting him get away with it.

Is there any rule in MMA letting a fighter target fingers, á la Raven/Tommy Dreamer? 

[wandshogun09]

7 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Is there any rule in MMA letting a fighter target fingers, á la Raven/Tommy Dreamer? 

That would come under ‘small joint manipulation’ which I’m pretty sure is against the rules.

Oh and I’ll just leave this here…

Look at his face at the end there when he says “now I’m kind of known for it and…uh, it’s working”. Absolute slime. 

[Carbomb]

The phrase "piece of shit" seems woefully inadequate at this point.

[jimufctna24]

There was a period when Jones, Gusty and DC were on top that the 205lbs division was renowned for eye poking.