Tom Aspinall has told Ciryl Gane to keep his chin up after he came up short against Francis Ngannou.

The Frenchman suffered his first career defeat at the hands of the Cameroonian in the main event of UFC 270 in Los Angeles.  

Defeat to Ngannou saw Gane fail in his bid to become France's first-ever UFC heavyweight champion. 

But Aspinall, who turns 29 in April, thinks Gane has nothing to be ashamed about. 

Speaking exclusively to GIVEMESPORT, he said: "No, this is heavyweight MMA.

"It's the most unpredictable sport in the world in the most unpredictable division.

"Guys are going to take losses. It doesn't mean that they're not good because they're losing.

"Chris Daukaus is still very good and obviously Ciryl Gane is very good as well so there's no shame in losing at the highest level in the heavyweight division.

"We're all going to fight each other eventually anyway."

Ngannou, 35, left MMA Factory in Paris in 2018 to set up camp at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas.  

Aspinall meanwhile has spent the entirety of his professional career fighting out of Team Kaobon in Manchester.

When asked if the thought of moving to the States has ever crossed his mind before, he added: "Yeah, it has.

"We'll just see where it all pans out because I don't know if I want to be in the UK forever or not and the US is definitely more accessible.

"The UFC is a US company so everything is right there whereas in the UK it's a little bit harder to get.

"I don't know though because I've got three small kids, schools, I've just bought a house here.

"Who knows, who knows what the future holds, but I do like the US though, so we'll see." 

Aspinall, 28, will meet Russian veteran Alexander Volkov at UFC London on March 19.

The Mancunian was last seen knocking over Sergey Spivak in September as the hype train keeps on rolling. 

But Aspinall admits it can be hard at times to find the right sparring partners.

He continued: "It's difficult because most of the big guys are obviously going where the money is at which is boxing.

"So it's difficult to get heavyweight training partners in this country as well. It's tough. There's just not many high-level heavyweights around really in this country to train with.

"Hopefully if I can inspire a few that would be excellent because we definitely have the fighting spirit, us Brits definitely have the fighting spirit, everybody knows that.  

"But yeah, I would definitely like to see more big guys getting into the sport, that would be amazing."

UFC FIGHT NIGHT®: VOLKOV vs. ASPINALL tickets go on sale from 10 a.m. GMT on Friday, February 4, via AXS and Ticketmaster. To stay up to date with the latest ticketing information, register your interest via UFC.com/London.