London, England — Tom Aspinall bounced back from injury this past weekend at UFC London, defeating 10th ranked heavyweight Marcin Tybura.
Aspinall’s last outing against Curtis Blaydes ended extremely unceremoniously as he tore his ACL and MCL within the first 15 seconds of the fight. Coming into his fight with Tybura, the Englishman made it clear that he believed people would be surprised at how good and more mobile he looks, post surgery.
“The close people to me know that I was getting through these training camps and fights on one leg and that’s not over exaggerating,” Aspinall (13-3) said at the UFC London media day.
Aspinall has made it no secret that a fight with Jon Jones is his ultimate goal, and the 30-year-old talked following UFC London about wanting to put in performances that’ll motivate Jones to stick around.
“Another goal of mine is I want to motivate Jon Jones to stick around and fight me, that is my absolute dream. A guy from Atherton fighting Jon Jones, oh my goodness, that’d be absolutely incredible,” Aspinall said.
Not only that, but the 30-year-old has mapped out his plan on how he believes he could get to that point. The scheduled main event for UFC Paris on September 2nd, is Ciryl Gane vs Sergei Spivac. Tom Aspinall has declared that he wants to face the winner of that at UFC 295, on the undercard of Jones vs Miocic.
“Throw me in with anybody, but that fight [Aspinall vs Gane/Spivac winner] just makes sense. It’s in Paris, I get a cheeky little trip to Paris, have a few beers and eat some frogs legs and all of that, chill out a little bit and yeah, just be able to watch the fights and be involved in it and build the next fight up.
“If possible I’d like to fight lower down that card [UFC 295]. If I could fight on the same card against the winner of Spivac and Gane, I think that’d be amazing because they fight in four weeks time and then they’ve got a few months to prepare for November, that’s perfect for everybody I think, so why not?” Aspinall said.
Aspinall has already beaten Sergei Spivac once before and that came back in 2021. The Englishman believes he matches up ‘pretty well’ against the Frenchman, Gane.
“I think I match up pretty well against him. I think I’m equally as fast as him, I move equally as well, the difference is I can grapple and I’ve got a lot of power. I think that’s pretty undeniable at this stage of my career, I’ve got a lot of knockouts on my record and if I touch you once.
“I wasn’t even throwing heavy tonight I thought it was going to be a five rounder, I didn’t mean to knock him out, I thought it was going to be a five rounder I’m not even joking ask any of my team. It just takes one shot at heavyweight, especially with me throwing them,” Aspinall said.
Watch the full UFC London post-fight press conference with Tom Aspinall above.
