By Raj Prashad
Tom Aspinall Knows 'One Shot' Is All He Needs Against Jon Jones
The UFC’s Tom Aspinall is one of the most dangerous men in the sport right now, with three consecutive first-round knockouts en route to holding the Interim Heavyweight Championship.
Earlier this summer, as Aspinall prepared for his next steps inside the Octagon, he teamed up with the official tequila of the UFC, Cuervo. As part of The Cuervo Challenge: One Round in the Octagon, opponents were challenged to a blind taste test, where they guessed which tequila they thought was Cuervo. If they got it wrong, they had to do one round with Aspinall.
“I've been familiar with Cuervo for quite a while. It's obviously one of the biggest tequila drinks in the world and the official sponsor of the UFC. I've been familiar with the drink for a long time and to hear the guys say bad stuff about it, it was so much fun when they realized that I was there trying to do a round of fighting, and then at the end we actually did a round of drinks,” Aspinall tells Fightful.
“I think the only reaction that threw me off was the fact that none of them actually wanted to do a round with me. I thought some brave guy would have tried to jump in. Tried to have a little bit of beef with me, which is what I was expecting a little bit, but yeah, it was good fun.”
Getting an opponent to get into the Octagon with him isn’t a problem unique to the Cuervo Challenge. Aspinall has spent much of the year vying for a showdown with UFC Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones in a unification bout after the champ’s fight with Stipe Miocic was cancelled last November.
“I was pretty sure at one stage they were just gonna throw me in and push Stipe to the side. But once I realized that they're gonna honor this fight, and I think it was the right thing to do, to be honest. Cause I think that down the line it just makes mine and Jon's fight even bigger,” Aspinall says.
Instead, he settled for a rematch against Curtis Blaydes this summer while the UFC went with Jones against Miocic last weekend. The highly-anticipated fight ultimately reached a conclusion that didn’t surprise much of the MMA community, Aspinall included.
“We can't take away from what Jon did because he just fought who was in front of him, and I think Jon did exactly what he was supposed to do, and I think everybody who remotely knows what they're going on about with MMA and has any kind of MMA knowledge, knew that was gonna happen,” Aspinall says.
“Stipe always had a puncher's chance, of course, but being 42 years old and coming off a four year layoff and a knockout loss, he just doesn't have the legs anymore, man. He just can't do what he used to do. Simple as that. And that's not a knock on Stipe. I've got all the respect for Stipe in the world. Jon Jones is just far superior to him right now in his career. That's all.”
For Aspinall, serving as a last-minute substitute in case of injury to either fighter on Saturday night gave him an up-close view of the caliber of fighter Jones still is. He says being in person gave him a better perspective of his speed, reactions, his defense, cardio, and conditioning. It also gave him more confidence in what a future showdown might look like.
Despite perceptions of Jones’ future and rumors around a fight with Alex Pereira, Aspinall thinks a fight eventually happens. He says the champ is “playing possum” and he believes “it’s going to happen.”
Three months since his last fight, there’s no expectation of when he might square off with Jones in the Octagon. The interim champ isn’t in any hurry either. He says he’s always training and ready to go whenever, but acknowledges that with each day that passes, Jones is getting older while he hasn’t hit his prime yet.
Jones is the only fight on his mind at this moment — one that he thinks has an opportunity to be one of the best in combat sports whenever it happens.
“I think it's definitely the biggest heavyweight fight in UFC history,” Aspinall says.
Aspinall is up for the challenge against a certified MMA legend and unquestionably one of the best to ever do it. Jones is “way better” than anyone Aspinall has ever matched up with, he says, but that’s not wavering his confidence ahead of the biggest fight of his career.
“I've never fought anyone anywhere near as good as Jon. On the other side of things, I think it's well proven in my fights, that I need one shot to change everything. And I'm pretty good at finding that one shot. Jon's a human being just like everybody else. I'll find that one shot on him. I know I will,” Aspinall says.
“Regardless of skill level and legacy and who he's fought and who I've fought and all that thing. At the day, he's got a brain like anybody else. And I know that if I hit him or if I rattle his brain like I've done everybody else, I'll knock him out. And that's what I intend on doing.”
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