Aspinall provided his analysis on Ciryl’s TKO win over Pereira, questioning the legality of several strikes.
Tom Aspinall watched Ciryl Gane finish Alex Pereira from his couch, hit pause, and started counting elbows.
The UFC’s undisputed heavyweight champion, who was not invited to UFC Freedom 250 at the White House, broke down Gane’s second-round TKO on his own YouTube channel after the Frenchman captured the interim heavyweight title in the Freedom 250 co-main event on June 14, stopping Pereira at 1:27 of round two on the South Lawn. Aspinall flagged what he described as a lot of illegal elbows in the finishing sequence, calling several of the strikes “very illegal.” The criticism was not a one-off observation. Aspinall has repeatedly labelled Gane a cheater since their UFC 321 no-contest in October, and the YouTube video read as the champion doubling down on that framing with fresh footage.
“Ooh, they look a bit illegal,” Aspinall said in real time as Gane unloaded on a downed Pereira. “They look very illegal.” After the finish: “I have to watch that again. It looked like there was a lot of illegal elbows going on, illegal punches, but generally, he looked good.”
The footage backs up the read on the strikes themselves. Multiple outlets reviewing the finishing sequence identified strikes landing to the back of Pereira’s head as Gane chased the stoppage, with referee Herb Dean waving the fight off before the clean blows could be untangled from the questionable ones. Pereira’s team has not announced an appeal.
Aspinall hasn’t competed since October 25, 2025, when his UFC 321 title defence against Gane in Abu Dhabi ended in a no-contest after multiple inadvertent eye pokes in the opening round. He underwent double eye surgery in the aftermath and has only recently returned to training. He has not had a return date confirmed.
Which is a strange place for a reigning champion to be: at home, on YouTube, narrating the guy who just won an interim version of his belt for the second time, and not happy about how it ended.
Aspinall also took a shot at Pereira’s heavyweight debut in the same video. The Brazilian, attempting to become the first three-division UFC champion, looked, per the champion, “a bit stiff and reserved from the beginning. He looked slow, but he’s not a particularly fast light heavyweight.” Pereira had outweighed Gane at the official weigh-in (251 to 248 pounds) but was outpaced and outstruck for the full eight minutes of the fight.
Gane now holds interim heavyweight gold for a second time in his career, having previously won the interim title in 2021 before losing a unification bout to Francis Ngannou at UFC 270. He was vocal post-fight about wanting the undisputed unification next, and specifically about wanting it at home. UFC returns to Paris on September 5 at Accor Arena. Aspinall responded directly in the video.
“Paris in September, right? I’ll do that. Yeah, I’ll do that. Let me know. I don’t mind. I’ll go to Paris.”
That’s a verbal acceptance, not a booking. Two open variables sit between Aspinall’s response and a sanctioned poster. The first is medical: Aspinall’s double eye surgery recovery and the gap between recent training and a championship fight in three months. The second is contractual: Aspinall’s manager, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom, has been publicly calling the existing UFC deal “a disgrace” for the past week and has said he will not let Aspinall accept his current contracted purse to fight Pereira or Gane. Hearn’s position is that the contract needs to be renegotiated before any unification booking goes on the calendar. The UFC has not publicly responded beyond Dana White’s “you sound stupid again” line at the Zuffa Boxing 07 press conference last weekend.
The first fight between Aspinall and Gane lasted under a minute before the eye poke ended it. Eight months later, Gane has a knockout, a contested finish, and a venue request. Aspinall has a YouTube channel, a verbal yes, and a manager publicly haggling over his pay.
The controversy over the Pereira finish is unlikely to be formally revisited. Athletic commission protests on stoppages rarely succeed, and the UFC has shown no public indication it intends to review the result. The strikes will likely live on as a YouTube argument and a footnote in the build-up to whatever Aspinall and Gane do next.
What that next move looks like, and whether Paris in September is the venue, will be the heavyweight division’s defining question for the back half of 2026.
