The past weekend, the UFC landed in Abu Dhabi for an afternoon pay-per-view card with two championship belts for the line-up. The event itself wasn’t subject to quite as much of a promotional push as usual since ESPN is putting most of its marketing muscle behind the newly-launched ESPN streaming app, which won’t include UFC programming, as the company will make a historic move to a subscription model for its PPVs at the start of 2026 on the Paramount+ service.
Still, the broadcast hosted two championship bout, both of which ended in a degree of controversy.
The co-main event saw the Strawweight title, a belt that was vacated by Zhang Welli, who will move up to the Flyweight division to challenge Valentina Shevchenko next month, won by Mackenzie Dern after a debatable unanimous decision against Virna Jandiroba. Both women had win streaks before the event, and their faces showed signs of the bout after it so considering that two of the three judges had Dern only winning by one round, a rematch would be suitable. Taking into account the margin of victory, I’d say that the result of the contest is debatable, not a robbery, while still being more than worth of a rematch.
However, the main event, a clash between UFC Heavyweight champion, Tom Aspinall and perennial contender, Ciryl Gane with the title on the line, was marred by controversy.
The 32-year-old Aspinall is a fighter with a combination of power, speed, and agility that is in the prime of his career. His only loss in the UFC was as a result of a knee injury that stopped the fight just 19 seconds into the first round three and a half years ago. He knocked out three opponents since that time. Despite being the heavyweight champion, he has remained only sporadically active as a competitor, simply because not many fighters on the UFC roster are willing to take the fight when they are opposite Aspinall. Ironically, his UFC 321 opponent, Ciryl Gane originally declined to fight him a few years ago. Also ironically, former UFC heavyweight champion, Jon Jones, who beat Gane to win the title without ever competing in the 265 LBS division after Francis Ngannou was stripped of the championship following a contract dispute with the UFC, refused to fight Aspinall as well.
In fact, Jon Jones was so intent on ducking the contest against Aspinall that he vacated the title without ever defending it just to avoid him as an opponent.
For Ciryl Gane, he was basically known as the guy that was somewhat of a gatekeeper for the heavyweight division as he beat solid fighters like Derrick Lewis and Tai Tuivasa, but was defeated by the top-tier competition of the previously mentioned Ngannou and Jones.
That’s why it was somewhat surprising when he got the better of Aspinall with strikes throughout the first round, blooding the champion’s face as the round was coming to a close. Unfortunately, a pair of simultaneous eye pokes halted the action. The replay showed the brutal, albeit unintentional, foul from the challenger. After being given the standard five-minute recovery period, Aspinall told the referee and the ringside doctor that he still couldn’t see from his compromised eye, prompting the ref to declare a no-contest for the main event of the pay-per-view.
Post-fight, everyone was understandably disappointed with the result, but there are a few key takeaways from the underwhelming conclusion to the event.
Gane showed more than enough to be granted a rematch as soon as possible, depending on the extent of the eye injury to Aspinall. Jon Jones continued to prove why his legacy is going to be remembered as a letdown when he trolled the heavyweight champion with a photo of a duck posted on social media, and then attempted to issue a challenge to Alex Pereira for the UFC card that is scheduled to be held at the White House in June of 2026.
First and foremost, Jones retired rather than fight Aspinall because he knows that the British striker is a legitimate threat. This isn’t anything new for “Bones” Jones, as he spent the majority of his career away from top competition when he either got himself in legal trouble or failed drug tests. Yes, Jon Jones had the potential to be known as the greatest MMA fighter of all time, but he fell woefully short of that distinction because of a laundry list of unwise decisions. Chazz Palminteri’s stage show that was scripted for film, “A Bronx’s Tale” had the powerful narrative, “the saddest thing in life is wasted talent,” and that notion more or less sums up the career of Jon Jones. The way his continuous unwise decisions led to arrests and failed drug tests and it affected what could’ve been an all-time legendary career is more disappointing than anything else.
I think it goes without saying that while Alex Pereira is a dangerous fighter and would be a challenge for Jones, it’s no coincidence that Jon Jones would want to fight a more natural light heavyweight in the 265 LBS division to give himself an inherent advantage. The fact that Jones wanted no part of an Aspinall fight tells you that if he’s going to take a risk at all, it’s going to be a calculated risk. Reportedly, Jones re-entered the testing pool to eventually be eligible to fight, and given that he was invited to Trump inauguration earlier this year, it wouldn’t be too surprising if the orange villain request that he compete at the card that will be held on Trump’s birthday. Given Dana White’s fondness for Trump, he will make it happen. If Jones can say out of jail and pass the drug test is a completely different matter.
The bigger story, at least right now, is where does any of this leave the UFC heavyweight division?
The bottom line is, Jones’ reign as champion was a total farce. He was shoehorned into a title shot after the contract dispute with Francis Ngannou because the company wanted someone will star power to shift the narrative of the championship away from the exiting Ngannou. Jones won the title in March of 2023 and only defended it once when he beat Stipe Miocic in Novemver last year. So, within just over two years, the belt was defended once before Jones was stripped of the title this past June.
The no contest between Aspinall and Gane doesn’t provide any answers, and if anything, only brings up more questions. Did we see a chink in the armor of the champion?
Truth be told, many of the divisions within the UFC have been influx during the duration of the ESPN deal. Jon Jones, Conor McGregor, injuries, retirements, and moving to different weight classes made an already oversaturated product that much more difficult to follow for the fans. More importantly, it made it exponentially more difficult to make stars when the championships of some divisions were MIA for extended periods of time.
There’s no doubt that the massive 7-year deal worth $7.7 billion with Paramount is a total game changer because it will make more of the product more accessible to more fans than any other time in the history of the sport. But, it will definitely be important to have the promotion structured in a way that is easy for the audience to follow, which is one of the reasons for the original surge in popularity two decades ago.
The heavyweight championship has always had a level of gravitas and cache in American sports, and this new Paramount contract has the potential to rejuvenate a UFC product that was very diluted during the majority of the ESPN deal. So, the possible Aspinall/Gane rematch to determine a definitive heavyweight champion should be a priority for the organization.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
Email [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
