For Tom Aspinall, the theme of this UFC 304 fight week is “coming full circle.”
The interim UFC heavyweight champion has his eyes trained like a laser on Curtis Blaydes, the man Aspinall fought for just 15 seconds two years ago, hurting his knee without any combat contact.
The Atherton, England native will be competing in the bout virtually in his hometown of Manchester, which is also where the British hulk made his professional mixed martial arts debut 10 years ago this December.
“To be honest with you, if I’m not having fun, I should retire,” Aspinall told The Post on Tuesday. He said he’s refocused his commitment to the sport exactly two years after a devastating injury that sidelined him for a year. “This is my absolute dream. … Very few people on earth get to live their true dream, and for me this is the dream. To defend my UFC title in my hometown. That’s my dream.”
“So, no matter what happens this weekend, getting to this point now was worth it, even going through the strike on Saturday night.”
Although it’s Saturday night in the US, Aspinall and Blaydes’ fight doesn’t take place locally until just after 4am, with the pay-per-view bout scheduled to start at 10pm Eastern time.
Still, given the nature of the official victory given to this weekend’s challenger, this is a second chance for Aspinall (14-3, 14 completions) to show the world he’s better than Blades and vice versa.
“He won, he got the prize money, which is great. I didn’t get any,” Aspinall said, laughing at that last bit. “I ended up with a really swollen leg and was on the couch for a year, so he definitely had an advantage all around.”
“But I don’t think he’s satisfied yet, so we’re going to settle it this weekend anyway.”
Blaydes (18-4, 13 finishes) is the type of fighter Aspinall would love to face in his extracurricular activities. The Chicago native, who trains in Colorado, doesn’t like the drama that inevitably comes with being an interim champion.
But the American has a different perspective to most of the elite heavyweights in the UFC, as wrestling has been the foundation of his career, although his stand-up knockouts have increased in recent years, with two in his last four bouts.
While the Blades are not exactly an unstoppable force in that regard, Aspinall comes a little closer to being an immovable presence.
More accurately, he’s an almost impossible object to take down, as Aspinall has spent the shortest time on his back in UFC history (minimum five fights) — officially just one second against Blaydes.
“Curtis can test me if he wants to,” Aspinall said. “I think the most I’ve spent this camp has been on my back. There’s an opponent up there. Curtis Blaydes is not a very comfortable training opponent.
“The way I do it is to work with multiple training partners. So, [the] I’ll take you down from below [of me]It takes a lot of energy to beat a big guy. And then you start again with a new partner. It’s really exhausting. It’s exhausting training for this guy. I did everything I could.”
Aspinall is a thorough finisher and also holds the UFC record for the shortest average fight time (2 minutes 10 seconds).
Aspinall has only advanced to the second round once since his UFC debut in 2020 and has never lasted the full two rounds in professional MMA.
This is in contrast to Blaydes, who frequently takes his opponents down and finishes them with strikes or wins points in the grappling phase, even winning one bout with the judges’ approval after five rounds, though he ran out of steam in the final two frames of his win over Alexander Volkov.
Aspinall again said he had done his best to prepare but acknowledged there were unknowns.
“I think it’ll be OK, but I haven’t been there yet so I don’t know what it’ll be like,” he said.
Regardless of who the winner is, the bout itself will be a rarity in UFC history, with Aspinall becoming just the third fighter to defend an interim title and unify it with a mainline belt, advance to undefeated status or never be stripped of the title.
Only three fighters had ever achieved this feat – heavyweights Andrei Arlovski and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, and bantamweight Renan Barao – but only Arlovski and Barao successfully defended their titles and later became undefeated champions.
The heavyweight unification bout has been delayed because of champion Jon Jones’ unwillingness to face anyone other than longtime champion Stipe Miocic in what he considers a legendary fight.
Jones and Miocic were scheduled to main event at Madison Square Garden last November, but Jones suffered a torn pectoral muscle and the interim title was won by Aspinall with a knockout over Sergey Pavlovic.
The heavyweight division remained divided, and Aspinall sought in vain a match with Jones, but any interference was shelved regarding the unbeaten title versus the interim title, Jones or anyone else but Blaydes.
“I haven’t really thought about it much to be honest,” Aspinall says of the possibility of moving beyond the interim title and ultimately being promoted. “I’ve kind of forgotten about it. Now I just want to beat Curtis and I’m not too concerned about what happens going forward.”
