Today, Tom Aspinall finds himself in the position of being the world’s best heavyweight fighter — but not so long ago, his path to UFC gold seemed farther away than ever.
In July 2022, just months after fighting in his first home country main event against Alexander Volkov, Aspinall was given the opportunity to top another fight card, this time against the perennial top contender Curtis Blaydes. However, just 15 seconds into the first round the Briton found himself prone on the canvas after sustaining a serious non-contact knee injury while attempting to land a leg kick on his opponent.
The resulting injury would sideline him from competition for one day short of a year, where he would return to winning ways with a sure-footed first round TKO win against Polish heavyweight Marcin Tybura.
“I knew that I had a bad knee years before I knew it was getting worse. I just wanted the fight to be over. I just wanted to blast him out of there as quick as possible and you shouldn’t go into any fight feeling like that,” Aspinall said of the worst night of his career to TNT Sports.
“I don’t remember much to be honest, it was a bit of a blur. I was in a lot of pain, first of all, but also I was in a lot of emotional pain. I was so disappointed. I felt like I wasted everybody’s time. It was [a] reality check for everybody that was on the train. It just epitomises how brutal this game can be.
The damage — torn medial collateral ligament, torn cartilage and a stretched anterior cruciate ligament — left Aspinall wondering when, or if, he would ever return to the sport.
“There were long, drawn out, bouts of feeling in a really dark place,” Aspinall said. “To be honest, before the injury, I was half in the sport and half out. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to carry on. I was doing things I shouldn’t have been doing outside the gym, my recovery was non-existent, the training was in a bad situation. There was a lot of things that should’ve been changed.”
The next step on Aspinall’s journey comes in the shape of his first defence of the undisputed world title against former title challenger Ciyrl Gane in the UFC 231 main event later this month.
