UFC President Dana White isn’t holding back on his thoughts about heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall, who recently said he’d rather vacate his title than fight close friend and teammate Ante Delija.
Ahead of his UFC 321 title defense against Ciryl Gane this Saturday in Abu Dhabi, Aspinall stirred up discussion when he admitted that if Delija ever rose to No. 1 contender status, he wouldn’t want to fight him — even if it meant giving up the belt.
That kind of loyalty doesn’t sit well with White. Speaking to TNT Fight Sports, the UFC boss made it clear that personal relationships shouldn’t stop fighters from doing their job.
“You know what I think about that before you even ask me,” White said. “I hate that. Many friends, relatives — name it — have fought each other before. You’re competing to see who’s the best. To even think about vacating because you don’t want to compete against somebody is absolutely insane, but he’s a grown man, that’s up to him.”
Aspinall’s friend Delija recently made waves by knocking out Marcin Tybura in his UFC debut, entering the top 10 and potentially working toward a title shot. While that’s still a few fights away, Aspinall’s comments clearly hit a nerve with White, who’s seen plenty of similar situations throughout UFC history.
The heavyweight division currently lacks a clear challenger beyond Saturday’s main event. Alexander Volkov and Jailton Almeida are set to clash on the same card, with Henry Cejudo and Kamaru Usman recently calling it a “No. 1 contender fight.” Meanwhile, Alex Pereira has teased a possible move to heavyweight — though he’s more interested in facing Jon Jones than Aspinall.
White, however, isn’t looking that far ahead.
“Anything is possible,” he said. “I don’t really like talking about the light heavyweight champion moving up, but we’ll see how things play out Saturday. Even Tom saying, ‘I’d vacate,’ is silly when the guy [Delija] is ranked No. 10.”
For now, all eyes are on UFC 321’s main event — Aspinall vs. Gane. A win for Aspinall could cement him as the face of the new heavyweight era, but Gane has the chance to finally claim undisputed gold after falling short twice before.
As White put it:
“Aspinall is supposed to be the future of the heavyweight division. But first, he’s got to get through Gane.”
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