Former UFC standout heavyweight Stefan Struve has thoughts about Tom Aspinall’s future if he gets past Ciryl Gane.
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Exactly five years ago Friday, Stefan Struve made his final walk to the cage as a fighter.
And though it’s been a minute since he fought, the longtime UFC heavyweight has thrown hands with some of the most elite heavyweights in history, including Junior Dos Santos, Alistair Overeen, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Andrei Arlovski.
In addition, Struve has a bonus-winning knockout of Stipe Miocic on his resume – and that’s the man considered by many to be the best heavyweight champion in UFC history.
That’s a claim current champ Tom Aspinall would like to make some day, and given the history of the UFC’s heavyweight champions not holding the belt for too long, it’s one he could make reasonably soon.
For Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC), it has to start with a win over Ciryl Gane (13-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) on Saturday in the UFC 321 (pay-per-view, FX/Disney/ESPN+) main event at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. It will be the first attempted defense of his title after being elevated from interim status after Jon Jones tucked tail yet again.
Clearly, a loss for Aspinall – he’s roughly a 4-1 favorite – would be a non-starter in terms of calling himself the world’s best heavyweight. But Struve thinks Aspinall needs to not only beat Gane, but beat him convincingly to avoid any detractors who might want to still elevate Jones based on his win over Gane in 2023.
“Yes, (Aspinall has to make a statement) because Jones beat Gane,” Struve recently told MMA Junkie. “If he loses to Gane, it’s going to be used against him. But I think he has the skill set to beat Ciryl Gane. It’s going to be very interesting because in my opinion, these are the two best-moving heavyweights ever in the UFC, probably.
“They’re used to fighting guys with a lot of power that stand still in front of them and are an easier target with their speed, with their movement and the way they want to set up their shots. It’s definitely very interesting to see how Tom is going to do with Ciryl around him in the first and second round when he’s throwing that jab and the low kicks and everything. Is Tom going to wrestle? Is he going to strike with him.”
Aspinall hasn’t fought since he defended the interim title against Curtis Blaydes in 60 seconds in July 2024. It was a rare instance of an interim champ being asked to defend that belt instead of unify it against the champion, all because Jones wanted a presumably much easier fight against Miocic, who had been retired for nearly four years.
Jones won that fight, then did a bunch of typical Jon Jones stuff for a long time before finally walking away again, but not before stalling out Aspinall’s momentum for a not-insignificant amount of time.
Struve thinks Aspinall being a champion who wants to fight, unlike Jones, will be a good thing.
“Finally, the heavyweight division is moving again,” Struve said. “It’s July (2024) since Tom’s last fight. It seems like he wants to be active. If Ciryl wins, it seems he wants to be an active champion, as well. I hope some new stars will stand up in the heavyweight division, because it’s necessary when you compare the division now to, say, 10 years ago. There were a lot more big names, a lot more fun matchups.”
As for Aspinall looking back at the ex-champ if he wins, Struve suggests he just walk away from the oft-mired in trouble and controversy Jones for good. Struve thinks Aspinall should target the winner of Jailton Almeida vs. Alexander Volkov, who fight just ahead of him on the main card Saturday.
And after that, if Alex Pereira moves up to heavyweight to go after an unprecedented third title, Struve thinks Aspinall should think about that – or the far-fetched possibility that former champ Francis Ngannou could leave the PFL to return to the UFC.
“I don’t think (Aspinall) wants to go back to the Jones situation,” Struve said.If that fight’s going to happen somehow, it should be Jones chasing that. … I think Jones let a lot of people down, the way he approached that situation and in the end, didn’t fight. I’d have loved to see that fight. But I’d say the winner of Volkov and Almeida is an easy pick. And then I’d like to see Francis back in the UFC. That’s the fight.
“(Pereira) can go up, too. I’d be very interested to see that. He looked huge against (Magomed) Ankalaev (at UFC 319). He was 240, I think. He’s a heavyweight. The only reason he makes 205 is because he cuts. He doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him. … I think it’s going to take a lot of work to convince Tom to fight Jones at this point.”
