UFC 321: Aspinall Vs. Gane full battle card

This weekend sees the second of two UFC pay-per-view fight cards for the month of October. That fight card, UFC 321, features a heavyweight title fight between champion Tom Aspinall and former interim champion Ciryl Gane in the main event. The UFC PPV event takes place on Saturday, October 25 at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. A second title fight, for the vacant women’s strawweight crown, will serve as the co-main event for UFC 321. We look at the full fight card for UFC 321: Aspinall vs. Gane.

The UFC 321 pay-per-view card has an early start time. Preliminaries currently begin at 10:00 AM ET with the PPV portion of the event starting at 2:00 PM ET. The prelims will stream on ESPN+, while the UFC 321 PPV card will stream on ESPN+ PPV.

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UFC 321: Aspinall Vs. Gane PPV card

Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane – For Aspinall’s UFC heavyweight title
Virna Jandiroba vs. Mackenzie Dern – For the vacant UFC women’s strawweight title
Umar Nurmagomedov vs. Mario Bautista – Bantamweight
Alexander Volkov vs. Jailton Almeida – Heavyweight
Aleksandar Rakić vs. Azamat Murzakanov – Light Heavyweight

UFC 321: Aspinall Vs. Gane preliminary card

Nasrat Haqparast vs. Quillan Salkilld – Lightweight
Ikram Aliskerov vs. JunYong Park – Middleweight
Ľudovít Klein vs. Mateusz Rębecki – Lightweight
Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady vs. Matheus Camilo – Lightweight
Valter Walker vs. Louie Sutherland – Heavyweight
Nathaniel Wood vs. Jose Miguel Delgado – Featherweight
Hamdy Abdelwahab vs. Chris Barnett – Heavyweight
Azat Maksum vs. Mitch Raposo – Flyweight
Jaqueline Amorim vs. Mizuki Inoue – Strawweight

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UFC 321 Fight Card Main Event: Tom Aspinall Vs. Ciryl Gane

Tom Aspinall (15-3) had a professional MMA record of 7-2 when the UFC signed him to a deal in 2020. Aspinall made his promotional debut in July 2020 with a 45-second knockout win over Jake Collier. The win earned the then 27-year-old his first “Performance of the Night” bonus.

A knockout victory over Alan Baudot followed in October of that year. Aspinall made it three stoppages in a row in February 2021 when he tapped Andrei Arlovski in the second round of their matchup, a card headlined by Curtis Blaydes who lost to Derrick Lewis by KO in the second round.

Aspinall’s win over Arlovski moved him up the rankings to No. 13. First-round wins over Serghei Spivac (TKO) and Alexander Volkov (submission) followed Arlovski’s victory.

The Blaydes match was next on Aspinall’s schedule. The injury he suffered in that match kept him out of action until July 2023, when he stepped into the Octagon to face Marcin Tybura. Aspinall showed no hesitation or ill effects from his knee injury as he submitted Tybura in 73 seconds and won the fight via TKO.

Then, with UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones injured and his scheduled UFC 295 bout against Stipe Miocic canceled, the UFC tapped Aspinall and Sergei Pavlovich to face off for the interim heavyweight title at UFC 295. Aspinall won the fight and the title with a 69-second knockout.

Aspinall made one defense of the interim crown, defeating Curtis Blaydes via knockout at 1:00 in Round 1 of their UFC 304 bout.

Now 32, Aspinall has seven first-round wins and one second-round win under the UFC banner. He’s never made it past 1:09 of the second round in UFC action. Aspinall has earned seven “Performance of the Night” bonuses during his UFC run. The only win he has where he failed to receive a post-fight bonus was his win over Baudot in 2020.

Ciryl Gane (13-2) is the No. 1 fighter in the official UFC heavyweight rankings. The 35-year-old French competitor has only lost in UFC title fights, falling by decision to Francis Ngannou for the undisputed title in 2022 and losing to Jon Jones via submission for the vacant belt in 2023. Gane captured the interim heavyweight title in 2021 with a knockout of Derrick Lewis.

Gane made his debut with the UFC in 2019 after a Muay Thai career. He was 3-0 in MMA when he first fought in the Octagon. Gane went 7-0 to start his UFC career. His first defeat came in a title unification bout against Ngannou.

Gane enters UFC 321 on a two-fight winning streak. He defeated Serghei Spivac via TKO in September 2023. In his most recent trip to the Octagon, Gane defeated Alexander Volkov via decision at UFC 310.

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Tom Aspinall named UFC Heavyweight Champion

In June, then-UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones retired. The UFC named Aspinall the undisputed champion at the time.

“Jon Jones called us last night and retired. Jon Jones is officially retired. Tom Aspinall is the heavyweight champion of the UFC,” White said during the post-fight press conference following the UFC Baku fight card.

“I obviously feel sorry for Tom for losing all that time and money, but we will make it right,” White added. “Tom Aspinall is a good guy. He’s been incredible throughout the whole process that we’ve been through. He’s been willing to do anything – fight him anywhere, anytime and do this. Now he’s saying, ‘I’ll fight anyone. Tell me who and I’ll fight him.’ Aspinall was great. He will be a great heavyweight champion for us and I look forward to working with him.”

“International Fight Week kicks off on Monday in Las Vegas,” White continued. “Tom will be with us in Vegas all week, so we’ll get together with him and figure out what’s next.”

We’ll have more on UFC 321 as fight night approaches.