Dana White is not waiting on Tom Aspinall.
It has been 319 days since Aspinall’s first heavyweight title defense ended in a no contest at UFC 321, when eye pokes from Ciryl Gane left him needing multiple surgeries. He has not been cleared since. White was asked for an update after the Contender Series on Tuesday and gave a short one.
No. Tom Aspinall is hurt until we hear differently. So, the heavyweight division will just keep rolling.
His manager has been slightly more forthcoming. Eddie Hearn told Bloody Elbow that the holdup is medical rather than mental.
The only thing that we have to look at is when Tom Aspinall will be ready to return, and that’s not when he will be ready to return from a mindset perspective. That’s from a commission perspective in terms of his injuries, which shows you what he has been through. If the commission won’t let him fight, then you know how serious the injuries were.
Hearn would not commit to a date.
It all depends on whether he’ll be ready. He’s going to have to go through some additional testing to make sure he’s good to return, but he wants to fight.
The division has not stood still. Gane won the interim title by knocking out Alex Pereira at UFC Freedom 250 in June and has said he wants Aspinall or a Pereira rematch. Pereira posted a video on Sunday campaigning for that rematch. Josh Hokit went after both men on X, argued Hearn is stalling to buy time in contract negotiations, and said he wants Gane himself at Madison Square Garden in November.
Whether Aspinall keeps the belt through it is now an open question among fans, with the usual argument on both sides. One view is that an interim title exists precisely for this situation and a champion actively working toward a return should not be stripped. The other is that the division cannot sit still indefinitely.
