Cejudo Says Aspinall Should Vacate or Be Stripped After a Year Out

Henry Cejudo has run out of patience with the heavyweight logjam. On his Pound-4-Pound podcast, the former two-division champ argued that Tom Aspinall should either vacate the UFC heavyweight belt or get stripped, pointing to the fact that next month marks a full year since Aspinall last competed. His last outing was the October 2025 UFC 321 main event against Ciryl Gane — a fight ruled a no-contest after a pair of eye pokes left Aspinall unable to continue.

Aspinall has been in recovery since, undergoing eye surgery with no comeback date set. Cejudo put a hard line on it: by October 26, in his view, the promotion has grounds to strip the title. The wrinkle is that plenty of UFC champions have sat a year and kept their belts — current bantamweight titleholder Kayla Harrison among them — so the precedent doesn't neatly back him up.

A Title Reign Built on Bad Luck

Aspinall's road to the top has been anything but smooth. He's fought just four times since July 2022, when a freak knee injury against Curtis Blaydes (now 20-6, ranked #7) knocked him out for a year. He rebuilt with an interim title run that included avenging the Blaydes loss, then spent an eternity chasing a unification bout with Jon Jones that never materialized. Jones retired instead, elevating Aspinall to undisputed status — only for the Gane no-contest to derail his first defense.

The Hearn Problem

Cejudo also aimed at Aspinall's management setup. The Brit is repped by Matchroom Boxing's Eddie Hearn, who has publicly clashed with Dana White and called Aspinall's UFC deal a disgrace. Cejudo's read: Hearn offers no real leverage here, and antagonizing the person who controls the roster isn't smart business. He framed White as the immovable force in the room — the boss you don't want as an enemy when your inactivity is already stacking up.

The messier subtext is Gane's position. The Frenchman sits at #1 in the division on the back of a second-round KO of Alex Pereira, and every month Aspinall stays out is a month the contenders freeze in place. Cejudo's pitch is that vacating on Aspinall's own terms — with his own words, on his own timeline — beats getting the belt yanked publicly.

Whether the UFC actually moves on the October date is another matter. Aspinall's camp has offered no timeline, and the promotion has shown it can wait when it wants to. But Cejudo's core point is hard to argue with: a heavyweight title that hasn't been meaningfully defended since October 2025 isn't doing anyone in the division much good.