Tom Aspinall confirms potential comeback date in cold response to Ciryl Gane

Tom Aspinall has confirmed when he hopes to return to the octagon after Ciryl Gane's win on the White House card.

In the early hours of Monday morning, UFC star Gane reaffirmed himself as the top contendor in the heavyweight division as he won the interim title for the second time in his UFC career.

Despite heading into the fight as an underdog, the Frenchman picked up a second round knockout victory to deny former middleweight and light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira the chance to make history by becoming the UFC's first three-weight champion.

In doing so, Gane set himself up for a rematch with current heavyweight champion Aspinall, following the controversial ending to their previous meeting back in December.

"Next, everybody [knows] already. Let's do that in Paris in September," the Frenchman said when asked his future plans following the win.

In their last meeting, a series of accidental eye pokes from Gane rendered Aspinall unable to fight and led to the Englishman having to spend a considerable amount of time away from the octagon to recover from the injuries to both eyes.

However, it now appears that Aspinall is ready to return, as he issued a cold response to Gane's callout while confirming his comeback plans.

"Paris in September, aye? I'll do that. I'll do that," Aspinall said in a video posted to his YouTube channel.

When asked if he cared about fighting in front of a hostile crowd despite being the champion, he added: "I don't mind. I don't mind. I'll go to Paris. Let me know. I'll be there."

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Since the fight with Gane, Aspinall was forced to undergo double eye surgery to correct the severe vision complications that led to questions over his future in the sport.

But now, the heavyweight champion has confirmed that he is back in training and will be ready to go in time for the UFC Paris card currently schedule to take place on September 5 at the Accor Arena in the French capital.

Tom Aspinall claims Ciryl Gane used 'illegal' blows in White House win

During the video, Aspinall also offered his opinion on Gane's performance in the major win over Pereira.

Although he was impressed, the Englishman pointed out that a lot of the strikes that Gane landed in the moments before the knockout appeared to land to the back of Pereira's head.

"He [Gane] looked good. He looked good. I have to watch that again, it looked like there was a lot of illegal elbows going on ... and illegal punches. But generally he looked good," Aspinall said.

And Aspinall wasn't the only one to call out the controversial elbow strikes as fellow UFC heavyweight Josh Hokit, who picked up a knockout win over Derrick Lewis earlier on the card, also mentioned Gane's strikes during a interview following his win.

“Oh my God, Ciryl Gane’s beating Pereira. Elbows back of the head. Hey, we don’t care. It’s a fight, dude, it’s a fight. He’s hitting him in the back of the head," Hokit said reacting live to the fight while speaking with the UFC.

“Ciryl Gane’s known for his little cheap shots, I guess. I don’t know, his eye pokes. He’s gonna eye poke him in a second.”