Fernand Lopez coaches the UFC heavyweight champion, and the word stuck to his name this week is “disappointed.” That’s the word MMA Junkie put on Farah Hannoun’s story Wednesday, and the thing he’s disappointed about is the Tom Aspinall title fight. Hannoun’s piece has his full reasoning, so go read his explanation in his own words. I’m not putting any of it in his mouth. I’ll just tell you why I’d feel the same way in his chair.
The Aspinall fight never gave anybody an answer. It gave us an eyepoke. The Yahoo Sports betting column this week called it “the now-infamous Gane eyepoke” and argued Aspinall lost years of his career because of it. You can argue with that last part. You can’t argue that the fight settled anything, because it didn’t. And a coach who builds a guy for a title fight wants a result he can hang on the gym wall. A finger in the eye isn’t one.
A belt that comes with footnotes
Count the footnotes on Gane’s run. That same Yahoo column says Gane’s split decision over Alexander Volkov “almost certainly should’ve gone the other way,” and that Volkov would have fought for the title by now if it had. Then there’s the Aspinall eyepoke. Then there’s Alex Pereira, who got knocked out by Gane at UFC White House and has spent the months since insisting Gane landed illegal shots to the back of his head. Jed over at MMA Fighting wrote in his mailbag that Pereira has a case, but he also doubts anyone cares, and he called Pereira’s whole response to the loss a turnoff.
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That’s three big heavyweight nights, and every one of them comes with somebody else’s asterisk scribbled in the margin. None of those asterisks were written by Gane’s camp. They’re getting written for him, and the only fight that erases all of them in one shot is a clean, full-length Aspinall fight that ends with somebody’s hand raised for a real reason.
If I’m Lopez, that’s the itch I can’t scratch. Your fighter is the champion. Your fighter beat a two-division star on the White House lawn. And the loudest conversation about him is still about rule calls and a poked eye.
The division keeps matchmaking around the hole
Look at the Meta Rankings MMA Mania published Tuesday. Gane is champion. Aspinall sits at No. 1. Sergei Pavlovich is No. 2, Pereira No. 3, Volkov No. 4, Rizvan Kuniev No. 5 and Josh Hokit No. 6.
Now look at the bookings. Volkov fights Kuniev at UFC 333 on Saturday in Abu Dhabi, with DraftKings listing Volkov at -120 and Kuniev at +100. Volkov is 6-1 over his last seven and he’s once again fighting down the ladder. Pereira fights Pavlovich in the co-main of UFC 335 in Las Vegas on December 12, and Pereira is already talking about a title shot if he wins.
So the No. 2, 3, 4 and 5 heavyweights are all paired off, and the No. 1 guy is the one whose last title fight with the champ got wrecked by a foul. The sources I’ve got don’t say when Aspinall comes back, and I’m not going to guess. But the shape of the division tells you the obvious fight is the one nobody can finish booking, while everyone else gets a dance partner.
Jed’s one-word review of heavyweight in that same mailbag was “Catastrophe.” Harsh. Also hard to dispute when the champion’s own coach is publicly disappointed in the biggest fight his guy has been in.
Why the champ’s side should want it most
Here’s my take, and it’s mine, not Lopez’s. The person who benefits most from Gane vs. Aspinall happening again, cleanly, is Gane. He holds the belt. He has the knockout of Pereira. What he doesn’t have is the win that makes the Volkov debate and the back-of-the-head debate sound petty. Beat Aspinall straight up and every footnote turns into trivia.
The alternative is ugly. Pereira beats Pavlovich in December, starts lobbying for a rematch built on a grievance about illegal strikes, and the UFC sells that instead because Poatan moves the needle. Gane would be defending against a guy he already knocked out while the No. 1 contender watches from the side. That’s the kind of booking that turns a champion into a placeholder, and I’d be a lot more than disappointed if I were the one wrapping his hands.
Volkov and Kuniev go first on Saturday in Abu Dhabi. Pereira and Pavlovich follow on December 12. Somewhere in between, the UFC has to decide whether it wants a heavyweight champion with an answer or one with an asterisk.
