Stipe Miocic won six UFC heavyweight title fights while doing as little self-promotion as a man can get away with. By his own description he’s a character only behind the scenes. So when the quietest great in heavyweight history tells Tom Aspinall to blow off his employer, I pay attention the way I pay attention when a sharp bettor moves a line at 3 a.m.
In an exclusive interview with Athlon Sports, done with casino.org/us, Miocic backed Aspinall’s decision to vacate the heavyweight title over the eye injury he suffered against Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 in October 2025. Then he turned on the company. “The UFC’s never happy with anyone unless they’re making them a ton of money. So forget about them,” Miocic said, addressing Aspinall directly.
He’s right. The heavyweight matchmaking of the last month proves it.
The eye
Miocic has standing here. He said he tore his retina after an accidental poke in his UFC 241 rematch with Daniel Cormier, the fight he won by fourth-round TKO. “He got an eye poke. I’ve been there; I’ve torn my retina before, and it’s tough,” he said. His math on vacating was simple. He came back within a year, and if his own timeline had run longer, he says he would have given up the belt too.
That’s the correct math. Aspinall has been out since October 2025, so he’s already past a year. A champion sitting on a belt through that kind of absence freezes every contender below him, and this division has been frozen before. Jon Jones turned 38 in July 2025 and walked away without ever unifying with Aspinall, who was then promoted to undisputed champion. Heavyweight has spent a long time running in neutral.
A selfish note from the odds desk, too. I’ve lost enough money backing fighters coming off long layoffs at short prices to know that the first fight back is a coin flip wearing a nice suit. If Aspinall can heal without a clock on him, the next price on him actually means something.
Follow the money
Now look at who got the shot once Aspinall stepped aside. Gane defends against Josh Hokit at UFC 334 on Nov. 14 at Madison Square Garden. Hokit, the former Fresno State wrestler and 49ers practice squad fullback, signed with the UFC in August 2025 and is 4-0. Per Athlon’s rundown, he has also gotten into altercations with fighters, pretended to vomit at weigh-ins and insulted former First Lady Michelle Obama on the White House card. MMA Mania’s Meta Rankings have him at No. 5.
At No. 2 in those same rankings sits Alexander Volkov. He beat Rizvan Kuniev by unanimous decision at UFC 333 on Oct. 24 for his third straight win, and he has one loss in his last eight. He has fought 20 times in the UFC. He also had to slip into the UFC 333 press conference as a crowd member to ask Dana White what it takes to get a title shot, and White looked like a guy trying to place a face at a wedding. On The Ariel Helwani Show, Volkov said White still never gave him an answer. “They don’t have this answer every time,” he said.
On Hokit, Volkov was blunter. “He fights maybe a grand total of a fight and a half in the organization, and they give him a title shot.” The fight-and-a-half bit is a jab, since Hokit is 4-0, but the core complaint holds up. A newcomer with a loud act gets the belt fight at the Garden while a 20-fight veteran ranked above him in those rankings has to crash a presser to ask for directions.
To be fair to the matchmakers, Volkov hasn’t finished anyone since he choked out Tai Tuivasa in September 2023, and decisions don’t sell pay-per-views. That actually helps Miocic’s case. The UFC picks contenders by who moves the needle, and a champion nursing a damaged eye moves nothing for the company. Of course the relationship between Aspinall and White has cooled since the injury, as Athlon noted.
Miocic didn’t trash Hokit, for what it’s worth. “Look, he’s good at what he does,” he said, before adding that he doesn’t care for the trash talk and the character stuff, and warning that if you go overboard the well can run dry. That’s a guy who understands exactly why the shot went where it went and just doesn’t like it.
Where this leaves Aspinall
Volkov, of all people, said he’d support Aspinall’s first fight back being for the title, even though that shoves him further down the line behind the winner of Alex Pereira vs. Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 335 in December. Miocic likes Pereira’s chances of collecting a third belt. “I won a belt at 38,” he said. “I think he’ll be fine.”
So the board reads like this: Gane vs. Hokit in New York, Pereira vs. Pavlovich in December, Volkov waiting, Aspinall healing. If the UFC ran on merit, Volkov would be fighting at the Garden and Aspinall’s patience would be rewarded with the first shot back. If Miocic has this company figured out, and I think he does, the next heavyweight title shot goes to whoever is worth the most on Nov. 15.
