Even UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall had to admit he wouldn’t mind seeing Alex Pereira fight Ciryl Gane.
Aspinall is stuck on the sidelines with an eye injury that required surgery … something you
don’t just rush back from unless you want to end up half-blind like Michael Bisping. That’s led many to speculate on a potential Alex Pereira move up to heavyweight, where he’d potentially face Ciryl Gane for an interim title.
In a new video on Tom Aspinall’s own YouTube channel, he discussed the idea with Paddy Pimblett. When sharing their predictions for all the divisions in 2026, things got interesting at light heavyweight.
“It depends on what Alex Pereira does, don’t it? He could be moving up,” Pimblett said. “Tom needs to get healthy, you know what I mean? Wouldn’t surprise me if Pereira did move up and they do an interim belt between Pereira and Gane. That would be a good fight.”
“It would be a good fight,” Aspinall agreed. “I think it’s a good stylistic match-up.”
“We need to get back again, don’t we,” he added, clearly frustrated.
As for that, Aspinall revealed that he had at least one and possibly two surgeries on his eyes lined up for the end of December and January … plus a meeting with UFC brass.
“Been a bit of a long process cuz with eyes — like with other injuries, they just fix them straight away,” Aspinall said. “With eyes, because it’s obviously risky, they try and let them heal naturally. So we’re getting surgery on this [right] eye. Keep me out for a little bit. Not sure how long just yet though. Got a meeting about it soon. So it’s just been a slow process, a nightmare to be honest.”
Could that meeting be about a potential interim title being deployed for Alex Pereira? That would turn promotional lemons into lemonade.
There’s a lot of smoke regarding rumors that “Poatan” is preparing for his long-teased heavyweight run. Now that Aspinall injured, there’d never be a better chance for him to sneak in and grab that belt. With UFC looking to set up as many big fights as possible for their new broadcast partners at Paramount CBS, we wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the path they take in 2026.
