Tom Aspinall was on track to compete for a UFC heavyweight title. All he had to do was get through Curtis Blaydes before a baying home crowd. Instead, disaster struck, and Aspinall obliterated his knee only seconds into the first round.
Sidelined, with surgery required, Aspinall will return at long last to the Octagon, headlining UFC London this weekend. Aspinall believes that the injury has only boosted his drive, and built him into a far better fighter.
Why A Devastating Injury Changed Tom Aspinall’s UFC Career… For The Better?
Things, he said, were too easy before. He needed some adversity to push him into greatness. “I do actually [think this adds to my story], to be honest. It changed my mentality a lot.
Everything was moving so smoothly before. There was a lot of things wrong with stuff, I kinda didn’t wanna change anything because everything was going so smoothly.
I was just kinda like, happy to be there, happy to go along with anything. Now I’m just like, ‘Listen, if this isn’t serving me, whatever it may be, it doesn’t belong in my life in any way.’
My training situation, the conversations I’m having, the stuff that I’m putting in my body, the time I’m spending doing other stuff outside the gym.
Mate, I’ll be honest with you, before, say I trained for four hours a day, I was living four hours as an athlete. The other 20 hours I was living just like a regular person. I wasn’t living like a top-level athlete.
Now I’m making sure I get enough sleep, making sure I’m looking after the body, making sure I’m taking the right supplements, putting the right things in the body, stretching.
I’m doing mental preparation that I was never doing before. I feel like I definitely needed some adversity.” Aspinall’s newfound resolve will be put to the test against Marcin Tybura this weekend in the main event.
The landscape at heavyweight has changed considerably since then, with Jon Jones blasting Ciryl Gane to claim the heavyweight title.
Tom Aspinall still believes he’s headed for UFC gold, and only feels like the path is getting clearer. “It’s been a long, long year that I’ve been away from this thing and I absolutely love this sport.
I’d seriously forgotten how much I loved it until the fight week came around and training camp came around. I’m a way, way different version of myself than I was then.
I’m absolutely, completely different now than I was then. Way better. Way, way better.”
