London, UK – It’s safe to say that heavyweight Tom Aspinall was facing the toughest test of his career against Curtis Blaydes at UFC London on Saturday night.
The main event pairing and its counterpart at UFC Paris in September, between Ciryl Gane and Tai Tuivasa, was putting the pieces in place to produce a title contender for some time in 2023.
If it were to be Aspinall, he’d need to find an answer to the dominating wrestling of Blaydes, whose only losses were to elite, hard-hitting big men in Francis Ngannou and Derrick Lewis.
Unfortunately, the main event of the UFC’s second trip to London in 2022 was over before it even got going.
Round one Aspinall came out aggressive and landed on Blaydes who fired back with two big shots. Aspinall then landed a leg kick, but when he planted the leg back down on the canvas he suffered a knee injury and ended the fight.
No word of what the injury was as of this posting.
Tom Aspinall lands a leg kick then falls to the ground in pain, ending the #UFCLondon main event.
Curtis Blaydes wins via TKO. pic.twitter.com/GDJcOmyXHW
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) July 23, 2022
Official Result: Curtis Blaydes def. Tom Aspinall by TKO (injury), Round 1, 0:15
