"I'm not a bully" - Tom Aspinall speaks on Ciryl Gane avoiding him; says UFC stopped him from an in-cage face-off
UFC heavyweight Tom Aspinall has spoken about being stopped by the UFC while trying to enter the octagon to face off against Ciryl Gane.
Aspinall was in attendance last night at UFC Paris where former interim heavyweight champion Ciryl Gane took on Serghei Spivac. Coming off a first-round submission loss to Jon Jones earlier this year, the Frenchman secured a flawless victory over Spivac via a second-round TKO.
Following the bout, Ciryl Gane's next potential opponent Tom Aspinall attempted to get into the octagon in order to have a face-off. However, he was stopped by the UFC, talking about the same during an interview with TheMacLife, Aspinall said:
"I'm not a bully, you know what I mean? If he doesn't want the fight I'm not going to try and force it on him, I wanted to go in the cage, but the UFC didn't want me to go in the cage. Yeah, if he wants the fight it's here, if he doesn't want the fight, we'll see. I know that I'm a bad matchup for him. I think that stylistically it's a good matchup for me but if he doesn't want it, I understand."
Catch his comments in the video below (1:51):
Tom Aspinall points out why Serghei Spivac's gameplan against Ciryl Gane backfired
During the same interview with TheMacLife, Aspinall pointed out the mistakes Serghei Spivac made in his game plan against Ciryl Gane at UFC Paris. The Brit spoke about how Spivac was most likely planning to take Gane down later in the fight. However, that isn't the approach he should've made according to Aspinall.
While claiming that the Moldovan should've employed a grappling-heavy approach against Gane early on, Tom Aspinall had this to say:
"I think Sergey's plan was [since it was a] five-round fight, he was planning on taking him down later in the fight. But heavyweight MMA, I'm sick of saying it myself, but it's right, massive guys, tiny gloves mate."
He added:
"Few shots to the dome, [a] few shots to the body [and it's over]. Doesn't matter, you can't afford to wait late on because they just start wearing you out, man. So probably wrong gameplan on his part."
Catch Aspinall's comments on Ciryl Gane vs. Serghei Spivac below (0:47):