Tom Aspinall is the UFC heavyweight champion and clearly the best in that division in the UFC.
Tom Aspinall has beaten three of the four best contenders in the UFC’s heavyweight division.
So, what’s the problem?
Aspinall is a disputed heavyweight champion.
But it’s not Aspinall’s fault.
His recent history in the UFC could have been told by Lemony Snicket.
In 2022, in what was meant to be his coronation in London, Aspinall tore his knee 15 seconds into fighting Curtis Blaydes after having won his first five UFC fights.
Then, after coming back and winning the interim heavyweight championship, he had to defend a belt that shouldn’t be defendable because the heavyweight champ at the time, Jon Jones, dragged Stipe Miocic out of retirement so he could batter him.
Aspinall waited for Jones to finally sign on the dotted line to see who could become the undisputed UFC champ, non-Francis Ngannou edition.
Jones ducked Aspinall as blatantly as anyone has ever ducked another man in professional fighting sports and retired instead of fighting Tom.
Aspinall became champion via angry Dana White press conference.
Then, this weekend, in what should have been his crowning moment, he was poked in the eye by Ciryl Gane and couldn’t continue.
He’s zero for two in should have been crowning moments.
Not for nothing but the idea that Aspinall quit is insane.
The man could not see out of one and a half of his eyes after Gane was knuckle deep in his eyeballs.
Give me a break.
There’s an Arrested Development level of irony in Aspinall having to stop because of a poked eye just after Jones ducked him.
Before the Gane fight, there was real concern that Gane would win and would delegitimise the UFC heavyweight championship.
Gane winning seemed like the worst-case scenario.
It was not, this was.
Even though he’s probably the best and I’d pick him in the rematch, you cannot argue that Tom Aspinall is a legitimate champion.
He has never won the belt that he left Abu Dhabi with, in the octagon.
The illegitimacy is particularly stark when you compare it to boxing’s scalding hot heavyweight division.
There’s an undisputed champion in Oleksandr Usyk at the top of the heap, but then there’s a line around the corner of guys that have a legitimate claim to fight him, including the new entrant who beat the great Joe Parker in a slobberknocker, Fabio Wardley.
I’ve framed this so far as an Aspinall problem. That might be wrong. It’s not an Aspinall problem.
It’s a heavyweight problem.
Outside of the McGregor and Rousey years, the UFC was rarely hotter than when Brock Lesnar fought for them.
Even with an average heavyweight history, an immutable fact of fighting sports is that they’re better when the heavyweights are rolling.
An Aspinall win would have got that ball rolling again.
The UFC needed Aspinall to beat Gane like he’s beaten everyone – violently – and then they had a megafight lined up.
Aspinall v Alex Pereira.
Pereira has been trying to move up to heavyweight for some time and Aspinall would be a perfect foil for him.
Two brilliant strikers with dynamite in their hands going toe-to-toe.
A win against Pereira also would have made Aspinall a genuine superstar in a promotion that is begging for an English speaking one alongside Ilia Topuria.
They could have brought those two young, emerging stars over to Paramount and guaranteed instant return on investment for the Ellison family by putting their two signature young stars into megafights.
You combine that with the talk of Ronda Rousey’s comeback, and the newly sober and enlightened (for now) Conor McGregor, and the UFC had a package of nostalgia and modern day stardom to start the Paramount era with.
Even if I have serious doubt about Rousey, who is slurring speech because of head trauma, and McGregor who slurs speech because of head trauma and a decade of being a drug and alcohol lover, you can sell that package.
But now, if the UFC even vaguely still wants to resemble an athletic competition, everything has to go on hold.
As Dana White has acknowledged, they have to rebook Aspinall and Gane and given Aspinall is the champion, it has to be for the belt.
That leaves Jon Jones, who has been agitating for a comeback, and especially Pereira hanging in the wind.
Maybe Pereira fights Carlos Ulberg for the light heavyweight championship? Or maybe, as he clearly wants, he gets a heavyweight fight at the White House card against Jon Jones.
But for what?
It’s a big fight with no stakes.
If you make it a title eliminator, and if Aspinall beats Gane and Jones beats Pereira, then I have a better chance of marrying Sydney Sweeney than Jones has of getting in there with Tom Aspinall.
It’s just not going to happen.
Jon does not want it.
If Jones wins, he’ll just retire and Aspinall will have beaten the next four best heavyweights but still have never beaten a current or former champion.
Now, granted, the UFC will be fine.
The show will keep rolling on and they will keep printing money.
But the Ellison family I assume are keen to recoup their massive investment in the UFC.
An Aspinall win on Sunday would have been a way to make their first year as the UFC’s partner a scalding hot one.
The UFC is built on the premise that the best fight the best. That has been true for a long time.
But in the heavyweight division, the champion hasn’t even won a fight for his own belt.
They’re heading to Paramount with the promise of nostalgia, and an illegitimate heavyweight champion.