LowKickMMA framed Michael Bisping’s reaction to Tom Aspinall’s recovery with a line he tossed off almost like a shrug: “Quiet before the storm and all that.” I think he’s dead right. The heavyweight division should take it as a warning, because the man who just walked back into the gym is still the person every belt at 265 pounds has to answer to.
Here’s where things stand. MMA Sucka reported that Aspinall has officially returned to training after vacating the heavyweight title. Per MMA Fighting, he gave it up because of lingering issues from eye injuries, and those injuries trace back to one night. At UFC 321 in October 2025, Ciryl Gane poked Aspinall in the eyes during their title fight. It was ruled a no-contest, and Aspinall has had multiple eye surgeries since.
Gane kept moving. He won the interim title with a second-round knockout of Alex Pereira at the UFC White House card on June 14, and that interim strap became the undisputed championship once Aspinall stepped away. His first defense comes against Josh Hokit in the main event of UFC 334, Nov. 14 at Madison Square Garden.
On paper, that’s a clean line of succession. In reality, every step of it has a foul attached.
A Belt With an Asterisk Still Wet on It
The Pereira finish was messy. MMA Fighting reported that Gane rocked Pereira with a clean punch but landed a few illegal shots to the back of the head during the fight-ending flurry. Pereira has blamed referee Herb Dean for letting those blows go without a stop or a point deduction. The UFC then released corner footage in which Pereira’s head coach, Plinio Cruz, can be heard screaming “back of the head” at Dean. I can’t stand a referee who’s a beat late in that spot. When a guy is badly hurt and the shots are landing where they shouldn’t, that’s the moment the third man in the cage earns his check, and that night he didn’t.
Gane has his defenders. On Dominick Cruz’s Love & War podcast, Cruz and T.J. Dillashaw argued that the eye pokes say more about the opponent’s positioning than about Gane. “If you can poke me in the eye, that’s my problem,” Cruz said. Dillashaw added, “I don’t think [Gane] is a purposeful cheater at all.”
Fine. Grant them all of it. Assume Gane never meant a single one of those fouls. That still leaves the fight with Aspinall unfinished. A no-contest settles nothing. Gane is the undisputed champion because the man across from him at UFC 321 couldn’t see well enough to keep competing. Hokit is a legitimate first defense, and Gane has every right to take it. But nobody is going to treat that belt as settled while Aspinall is training again.
Why the Quiet Matters More Than the Noise
Look at the next six weeks. Gane and Hokit headline in New York on Nov. 14. In December, Pereira faces Sergei Pavlovich in the co-main event of UFC 335, still chasing his shot at becoming the UFC’s first-ever three-division champion. Charles Oliveira told MMA Fighting he expects Pereira to get back to his knockout ways in that one. Stipe Miocic has also weighed in on Aspinall vacating, according to Athlon. That’s a lot of loud names talking around a guy who hasn’t said much of anything.
That’s the storm Bisping is pointing at. Every heavyweight result between now and Aspinall’s comeback gets judged against one question: could this guy handle him? A Gane win over Hokit doesn’t answer it, and neither does Pereira flattening Pavlovich. All they do is set up the eventual return.
The Bisping angle gets even sharper when you remember what he said a few days earlier. Breaking down UFC 333 on his YouTube channel, he praised Alexander Volkanovski and took a shot at Islam Makhachev for his schedule. “He’s a fighter’s fighter,” Bisping said of Volkanovski. “He steps up. He stays busy. He’s not one of these guys doing an Islam, fighting once a year and then picking and choosing who he fights and letting contenders face one another.”
By that standard, Aspinall did the honorable thing. His layoff wasn’t a choice. Multiple eye surgeries aren’t a negotiating tactic. Rather than sit on a title he couldn’t defend and freeze the top of the division, he vacated it, which let Gane, Hokit, Pereira and Pavlovich keep fighting for real stakes. That’s the opposite of the hoarding Bisping was complaining about. If Aspinall comes back healthy and earns his way to a rematch, nobody gets to say he ducked anyone or held the belt hostage.
My take is that the UFC should treat Gane vs. Hokit as a legitimate title fight and book the winner against Aspinall as soon as doctors clear him. Don’t make him wait behind a three-fight queue. Don’t hand him an interim title. The division has been in limbo since a finger went into his eye in October 2025, and the only fight that ends it is the one that never got a finish.
Gane walks into Madison Square Garden on Nov. 14 with the undisputed belt. Somewhere in a gym in Britain, the man he never actually beat is back to work.
