Video
Original Description
UFC Live’s Karyn Bryant, Din Thomas and Paul Felder give their thoughts on Tom Aspinall’s return against Ciryl Gane with the heavyweight title on the line at UFC 321 in Abu Dhabi. The crew also gives their thoughts on the two title bouts at UFC 320, a rematch between Magomed Ankalaev and Alex Pereira as well as Merab Dvalishvili vs. Cory Sandhagen.
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Video Transcript
Tom Aspenol will face Sirill Gan for the
UFC heavyweight title. This is going to
be at UFC 321 on October 25th right here
in Abu Dhabi. Dino, your thoughts on the
matchup.
This was the fight to make. I'm so glad
they made it. I'm just a little upset
that they didn't make it a little sooner
because Gan might be the only
heavyweight in the world that could
match Tom's speed and agility. Boxing
game for both guys on point. Kicking
game for both guys. Both of them are
great. I think this comes down to
strategy and the grappling. Can Tom be
able to use all his skills, maybe get
serial guy to the ground? This is a
great fight. The one thing I'm concerned
with, Tom can't drop the ball on this
one. Tom's got to go out there and show
the world that he is the best
heavyweight in the world because we all
agree with that. We've all agreed that
he's the best heavyweight in the world.
He gets an opportunity to prove it
against the probably the second best
heavyweight in the world, Sirill Gan.
Well, looking at these two side by side
here, you know, uh, Sirill Ganon has the
highest significant strike accuracy
among active heavyweights with 61.3%.
Tom Aspen, though, has the shortest
average fight time with 2 minutes and 2
seconds. Crazy.
Pretty special. But Paul, yeah, the last
time we saw Tom was at 304. That was
July of 2024. That's a long layoff
against a dangerous guy. How you feeling
about that?
It makes me nervous. It does. But I feel
like Tom's been in the gym. Like anytime
I've talked to him and I've seen him and
he's been waiting for that John fight to
happen in the interim while he's been
waiting for all of this, I know for a
fact that he's been training. He's been
staying active and he finally gets a
fight. I feel like for him it's just got
to be a relief that okay, something's
happening. I have an opponent. I have a
task at hand. And that I think is going
to be motivation. But you're right, it's
a lot of pressure to deal with because
you were waiting for this big moment
with the Jon Jones fight and now you've
got to face somebody else. A very
dangerous opponent. I would be feeling
it if I was Tom Aspenol,
but this is an opportunity for him to
carve out his lone own lane. And this is
what I thought he should have did in the
beginning. Stop waiting on John. Carve
out your own lane. Now it's happening.
All right. Okay. Well, we did get some
other title fight announcements for UFC
320 on October 4th in Vegas. Two
pay-per-views that month. Let's go. Um
All right, Paul. How do you feel about
this one? A rematch. The champ
Ankallayia versus the former champ Alex
Peda.
I think this is the fight that needed to
happen. I mean, Pereira has done
everything that he's been asked to do
when he was a champion. He didn't feel
well on that fight. And I'm not saying
that's the only reason that he lost. He
may have lost anyway. We will never
know. But I think he absolutely deserves
to go back out there and get a shot at
that belt. And for Uncle Goliath, I
think it's just another great
opportunity to go and make a big payday,
too. I mean, you get to fight somebody
like Pereira. People are tuning in to
watch that fight.
And listen Dean, we are also going to
see the bantamweight title on the line
when Morab Wallace Ve defends against
Cory Sanhagen.
Sometimes Morab looks unbeatable. What a
year he's having. But Cory to me is the
biggest threat to Morab's title because
Cory's a problem solver and I'm sure
he's been studying Morav's style. The
challenge is Morab is getting better.
We've seen him do things that he hasn't
done before. Look at the submission over
over the former champ uh
Shawn.
Shawn Omali. Yeah. Jon Ali Morab is
getting better. It's Yeah. Already
forgot about him. Morab is getting
better. How Cory's going to solve that
problem to me is the challenge.
How you feel?
Absolutely. I I love that fight and I
think that truly is the fight that
needed to happen, right? They have not
fought before. It's fresh blood. It
makes sense. And it does present a whole
new list of problems for Morab to deal
with. He is so scrambly when he hits the
ground. He's got great cardio and those
knees. Anytime that you've got a
wrestler like Morab who you know is
going to shoot time and time again with
Cory Sanhagen the flying knees knees up
the middle the way he uses his front
kicks he does present a lot of
challenges and opportunities for himself
to win that fight but it's going to be
fun.
I want to circle back to the ankallay of
uh fight and ironically enough Paul
Craig is right there the guy that
submitted Magamemed Ankalia but what do
you make of that match up? Do you think
Pada was it that he fought too many
times too quickly before? I know we were
saying he wasn't feeling too good. Do
you think the motivation to get the
title back is as strong as it was to get
it the first time?
No, I think it absolutely is because
he's a winner and I think he's going to
learn from that mistake that he made in
the first fight. I thought he fought too
passively. I thought he spent too much
time on the fence. I think this fight he
knows, okay, I can't let my back get hit
the fence. I got to be able to stay off
the fence. I got to be able to keep some
space and I think he fights better this
time. I think he fights a completely
different style. He's going to go out,
be more aggressive and force Magamemed
and Goliath to actually back him up and
actually have to change directions to
come at him. Yeah, I think for those
reasons, him still being hungry, him
hopefully being 100% when he steps in
there is going to make it a much more
interesting fight. I completely agree
with Dean that he just never really
seemed to get it going. Wasn't the
aggressive self that we normally see
from Uncle, excuse me, from Pereira. So,
I think he's going and I think it's
going to make for a much more
entertaining fight between these two
because now, you know, you've got to get
off that fence. You've got to go
forward. You've got to try to put your
own offense in the face of Uncle
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