KSW heavyweight champion Phil De Fries has revealed Ciryl Gane wanted him on his team to prepare for fighting Tom Aspinall. Gane challenged Aspinall for the heavyweight title at UFC 321 last October, but the main event clash ended prematurely following a nasty double eye poke from the Frenchman.Aspinall vs Gane got off to a great start in Abu DhabiGettyBut it ended with 25 seconds to go in the first round, as the champion could no longer seeGettyThe challenger had success in the opening exchanges, leaving Aspinall with a bloody nose in what was shaping up to be a heavyweight classic in Abu Dhabi.However, having already been warned once about using his fingers, Gane caught Aspinall in both eyes with less than a minute left on the clock and the champion could no longer continue.Aspinall has since labelled Gane a ‘big cheater’ and his return to competition, now under the guidance of Eddie Hearn, is currently unknown after months of painful recovery.Gane, meanwhile, may be thankful the contest ended as it did, as he faces Alex Pereira for the division’s interim title next as one half of the chief support act on the UFC White House card.De Fries, a longtime training partner of Aspinall at the UFC champion’s Manchester gym, defended his own heavyweight title at KSW 117 this past weekend.The 39-year-old has made 14 consecutive defences of his belt and is widely recognised as one of Britain’s most accomplished MMA heavyweights.So when he was contacted by Gane’s team to better the Frenchman’s ground game, De Fries couldn’t believe what he was hearing.Gane wanted De Fries on board for Aspinall fight“Ciryl Gane’s coach messaged me and said, ‘Can you help me get ready for Tom?'” De Fries told talkSPORT.com ahead of his victory in Warszawa, Poland.“I was like, ‘I train with Tom every day, mate!’ When Tom’s fighting, I always want to wrestle him.“If you’re fighting a high pedigree striker, you want to mix your sparring up with them kind of guys.De Fries said he’d have to be paid a lot of money to travel outside of the UK and train with his fellow heavyweight elitesKSWGane is currently preparing to fight Pereira for the interim UFC heavyweight title on June 14Getty“I told him I train with Team Aspinall all the time, he went, ‘Oh s***’ we had a little joke and the coach seemed like a nice fella.“I get lots of messages, but they’d have to pay me a lot of money to come and do it because I don’t like leaving home.“If I don’t know you I want nothing to do with it now. I’m quite a sensible character now, not like when I was younger.”De Fries, who boasts a pro MMA record of 29-6, has been fighting under the KSW banner since April 2018, winning the heavyweight strap on his debut.Speaking on Aspinall’s comeback, he added: “Tom’s off the mats at the moment.“I think he’s doing a little bit on, but with the operations he’s had, I think he can’t even get a scratch on his eyes.UFC ScheduleFor all the upcoming fights and results this year, check out talkSPORT.com’s UFC schedule.“I don’t think he’s doing any contact at the moment. I’ve spoken to him now and then to see how he is, but us men like to not talk about our feelings too much anyway.”De Fries wants to be the KSW champion for 10 years before hanging up the gloves, but would be open to some major crossover fights before he stops competing.The Sunderland native has been name-dropped by Eddie Hall several times in the last month, with the 2017 World’s Strongest Man eager to face a world champion before he, too, retires.Hall faces Tommy Fury under the Misfits banner in June and was asked about his plans for the future on talkSPORT by Jim White and Simon Jordan.“Perhaps another five to six fights in total,” Hall said. “But the end goal is to fight someone big. A world champion, a world title, and just go for it.“And there are loads of those titles. There’s MMA, there’s KSW. Phil De Fries is world champion in MMA in that federation.“You’ve got people like Francis Ngannou, who is the best in the world, you’ve got Tyson Fury, who I’d love to draw into an MMA fight.“Stuff like that excites me more than anything.”De Fries told talkSPORT.com he’d be more than happy to face Hall in the future, giving ‘The Beast’ odds of around zero to defeat him