Dricus Du Plessis has built a whole career on saying the uncomfortable thing out loud, usually about himself and usually at full volume. This week he pointed that energy at somebody else. Sportskeeda reported that DDP laid out what he sees as the key consequence of Tom Aspinall’s extended injury layoff, and he boiled it down to four words: “That is so demoralizing.” NDTV Sports ran his comments under the line “He’s One Of The Best,” which tells you where Du Plessis lands on Aspinall as a fighter.
He’s right. If anything, he was being polite.
The Calendar Is the Cruel Part
The injury is bad enough. The schedule makes it worse. At UFC 321, Ciryl Gane accidentally poked Aspinall in the eye and left the Brit with a serious injury that sent his career sideways. Aspinall eventually vacated the heavyweight title after suffering another eye injury. Gane, who had already won the interim belt by stopping Alex Pereira at UFC Freedom 250 on the White House South Lawn, got moved up to undisputed champion without beating the guy who held it.
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Now look at what’s coming. On Nov. 14 at Madison Square Garden, Gane makes his first undisputed defense against Josh Hokit at UFC 334, on the same card as Kayla Harrison vs. Amanda Nunes. Hokit is 10-0 overall and 4-0 in the UFC. Good for Hokit. But even Matt Brown, while defending Hokit’s spot, admitted there was a more deserving contender for that title shot. So the most decorated heavyweight of this era gets to sit at home and watch the man whose finger wrecked his reign defend the belt in the most famous arena in the sport, against an opponent the punditry is still arguing about.
If that isn’t demoralizing, I don’t know what qualifies. Imagine being the best player on the team, getting hurt on a cheap play, and then watching the guy who hurt you lift the trophy at the parade.
The Rankings Clock Is Ticking
Here’s the quiet math nobody wants to say. Yahoo’s Uncrowned panel still has Aspinall ninth on its men’s pound-for-pound list, and three voters were higher on him than that. Ben Fowlkes and Conner Burks both had him fifth, Petesy Carroll sixth. But the panel’s only rule is that a fighter has to have competed within a calendar year or have a fight booked inside that window. Sit out long enough and you drop off the list entirely, no matter what you did before.
The panel framed the best case as Aspinall’s eyes healing in full so he can come back and reclaim what is his. They didn’t want to spell out the worst case. Neither do I.
Ariel Helwani wrote on X this week that “you should have to beat the champ to become the champ,” and the heavyweight division is the poster child for his complaint. Francis Ngannou, who beat Stipe Miocic at UFC 260, is still the last heavyweight to win the belt by taking it from the reigning titleholder. Gane’s path ran through an interim belt and a vacancy. That’s no knock on Gane, who did his job against Pereira. It just means the heavyweight title has gone years without a clean handoff, and the one guy who could restore some order to it is stuck watching from the couch.
Why DDP Is the Right Messenger
This lands harder coming from Du Plessis because he’s living a softer version of the same frustration. He beat Sean Strickland twice, then lost the middleweight title to Khamzat Chimaev, and then watched Strickland upset Chimaev at UFC 328 to become champion. DDP has since beaten Kamaru Usman and has made it clear he thinks a third Strickland fight is in order. That’s a guy who knows what it feels like to watch the belt move around without you.
He also clearly treats time away as a real fighting variable. Breaking down a likely Strickland vs. Nassourdine Imavov rematch on Fight Forecast, he flagged the layoff first: “Imavov took a long time off. He’s been out for quite a while.” When a fighter that tuned into ring rust calls your sidelining demoralizing, that’s an honest scouting report with some empathy attached.
And DDP knows something about climbing out of a hole. KSW reminded everyone on X that on this day in 2018, Roberto Soldić crushed him at welterweight. He went from that to UFC gold. If anyone gets to tell Aspinall the low point doesn’t have to be the last word, it’s him.
My take: the UFC should make it simple. Whoever walks out of Madison Square Garden with the heavyweight belt on Nov. 14 should have Tom Aspinall’s name penciled in the moment his eyes get cleared. The man didn’t duck anybody. He got poked. Until a doctor signs off, his only connection to that belt is a ticket to watch.
