Interim UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall has claimed he has no interest in switching coaches anytime in the future — given his tight-knit bond with his father, Andy.
Tom, who has honed his craft under Andy Aspinall’s watchful eye throughout the entirety of his professional mixed martial arts career, feels no other coach could have gotten him as far as his dad did.
Guided to an interim title fight win over Sergei Pavlovich in his Madison Square Garden debut, Aspinall landed gold for the first time back in 2023. Since then, the Atherton native, Aspinall, has managed to defend his interim crown to boot with a knockout of Curtis Blaydes.
But before all this success came his way, the Atherton fighter was approached by elite coaches from across the globe, all of whom wanted to help him reach his full potential. But the UFC interim champion simply had no interest — remaining strictly loyal to his father and his tight-knit team in the UK.
Receiving comparisons to Khabib Nurmagomedov for this fact, given the Russian’s steely allegiance to his late father, Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, British star, Aspinall continues to remain unmoved by potential new coaches.
“There’s a lot of great coaches I could work with anywhere in the world that would fly to my to my house. And stay there if they wanted to,” Aspinall said on the High Performance podcast.
“But I choose my dad over anyone,” he continued, adding that while some coaches might truly be elite, mentally and spiritually, not everybody knew who he was.
“And nor will ever know me on the level that my dad does. So, how am I going to trust anybody else to be my head coach when they’ve held a few pads for me. And seen me take someone down to the floor a few times and showed me a few moves?” the British star asked.
While they are from different parts of the world, Aspinall’s loyalty towards his father is quite similar to Khabib’s dedication for the late Abdulmanap.
In fact, when Abdulmanap passed away in 2020 after a bout with COVID, the 29-0 fighter simply up and quit fighting, taking retirement from MMA after a win over Justin Gaethje at UFC 252.
“This is my last fight,” Nurmagomedov said after his win. “There’s no way I’m going to be back without my father. I spoke to my mother. She don’t know how I fight without father, but I promised it’s going to be my last fight. And if I give my word, I have to follow it,” Khabib had said.
He was reportedly offered 8-figure contracts by Dana White and the UFC, but never budged from his decision to return and compete. However, the former lightweight champion has since taken on the role of coach and trains fighters just as the late Abdulmanap used to.
Khabib wouldn’t have retired if…
Former UFC double champion Henry Cejudo revealed a conversation he had with Team Khabib’s manager Ali Abdelaziz and asserted that, “it’s a role of respect and honor”.
Cejudo noted that the Dagestani camp had the same level of respect for Khabib and even lightweight champion Islam Makhachev does Khabib asks.
“It’s not like he [Khabib] is the commander-in-chief, but he [Khabib] is his [Islam’s] brother. They represent something just different…” Cejudo added, trying to pinpoint the relationship between the two icons.
However, digging further into the subject of Khabib’s untimely retirement, Cejudo added, “We even talked to Ali and he was like, ‘Hey, if Khabib’s dad was still alive, that motherf*cker wouldn’t be retired. 100%, he’s gonna do what his dad says”.
Khabib has even claimed that he only coaches because it was his father’s dream to get fighters like Islam, Umar and Usman Nurmagomedov to championships. Once this generation of fighters, the one that he used to train with during his fighting days calls it a day, he will no longer be coaching MMA either.
