Another thing that needs to be examined is this, while Tom has shown a good chin thus far. Gane in less than 1 round landed on Tom more than all his opponents since 2021 put together! And he also immediately started showing visible damage, how much punishment can he take? And is Gane a better pure boxer? he certainly looked like it.
I already believed Tom didn't have good offensive wrestling, and that wasn't really disproven either. Tom is capable of finishing anyone as long as he can retain that youthful speed and explosiveness, but that stuff goes quickly, and I feel we are a year or two from that not being nearly the factor it's been up until this point.
Neither guy was able to avoid a single low kick, but Gane had Aspinall beat on volume, he was more accurate and showed better defense.
Gane looked great, you could tell he was ready and prepared. It would be unfortunate if this fight isn't rebooked as soon as possible, and even then, we were robbed of something epic. In a rematch Aspinall is the one coming in with more doubts, which may impact his performance and mentality.
Also this isn't being spoken of much, but with 35 seconds left in the round, Aspinall darted in with his usual left hook to set up his right strait and Gane beautifully countered him on the chin with a right jab that intercepted the left hook and stumbled Aspinall. Gane was beating him to the punch on several occasions. In Tom's UFC career he has never fought a southpaw, and Gane just out struck him over roughly 5 minutes by going southpaw.
Aspinall doesn't have a real answer for the southpaw stance, that's what Gane and his camp may have theorized. Once Aspinall couldn't deal with southpaw, he would switch to southpaw himself to get off kicks, but he'd leave his chin in the air and Gane would narrowly miss counters. Aspinall isn't a better inside low kicker than Gane, so staying in orthodox sucks for him if the punches aren't landing. The roundhouse was the best weapon for Aspinall in this fight, but the jury is out on whether he really has the stamina to continue that type of attack over 2 rounds, let alone 5. The roundhouse feint is what will be needed to deter Gane from committing to lots of jabs. Gane is the more advanced striker without question, but Aspinall has enough of an X factor where he can still beat anyone at anytime.
Might seem crazy to you guys, but what you saw was the beginning of the end for Aspinall. Any good coach will pick up on this stuff. He doesn't do well or have many answers for southpaws at this time, and that probably won't change. Jon, Alex, and Gane can all fight in both stances, so some of these fights look much different to me now, as I'm sure it does for them as well. Any orthodox fighter who's ever boxed knows fighting a southpaw is a pain, and if you don't know what your doing you will get jabbed on your nose all fight, and that's EXACTLY what happened to Aspinall. Luckily for Aspinall all the dangerous stance switchers are basically at the end of their careers.
What Jones understood about the Gane fight was that he needed to stay within range, it wasn't going to be pretty. Aspinall tried to stay at range and work his way through the fight, and that isn't the optimal way to draw mistakes out of Gane.
