UFC interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall is gearing up to fight Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304 as the organization returns to Manchester. The fight will be a title eliminator with the winner of the fight almost guaranteed a title shot next. But it will take place at around 5 am in the morning, which has made Aspinall try out some new training techniques.
To prepare for this unusual time fighters will have to change up their body clock. Because one can’t really just wake up and fight someone first thing in the morning. Not even Jon Jones on a bender would enjoy that!
And Aspinall definitely isn’t. So he’s been tapping into his nomadic heritage.
The Brit spoke about the changes he made to his training camp for the fight, like making a ring of Hay Bales and shadow boxing it at 4 am. This is followed by dipping his knuckles in petrol for 20 minutes as the sun is coming up.
In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani for The MMA Hour, the Brit said:
“Big Joe Joyce reveals a few Gypsy methods for getting ready for a fight and I wanted to resort back to a little gypsy heritage that I got.”
Tom Aspinall on what he is doing to get ready for a fight at 5AM.#TheMMAHour pic.twitter.com/yoIMPyAAwa
— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) July 15, 2024
Aspinall apparently learned of this from a documentary called ‘Knuckles’ and the dipping in petrol makes your knuckles harder.
The preparation for the fight is in full swing, but Aspinall recently revealed that the UFC didn’t even want this fight to take place.
UFC didn’t want Aspinall to fight Curtis Blaydes?
Although the UFC has him facing off against Curtis Blaydes next, he wasn’t the first pick.
In the same interview with Ariel Helwani, the interim champ revealed that there was another name thrown in the mix, given more preference over Blaydes,
“The UFC didn’t want me to fight Curtis, they wanted me to fight Ciryl and Ciryl didn’t want to…. Let’s not act like you wanted to fight me because it isn’t accurate.”
Tom Aspinall responds to Ciryl Gane denying that he ducked him:
“Let’s not act like you wanted to fight me because it isn’t accurate.”
@arielhelwani #TheMMAHour pic.twitter.com/D80Wyzz88e
— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) July 15, 2024
Aspinall claims Gane rejected the fight. But the Frenchman says that is not the case. He thinks the Brit only accepts the fight when he knows his opponent can not say yes.
That said, Gane has often been accused of ducking fights. Actually Gane has rarely been seen since his one sided defeat to Jon Jones just months after being outclassed by Francis Ngannou.
Either way, that ship has sailed for Gane, and Blaydes pounced on the opportunity. Aspinall, however, would want to win the fight and further legitimize his claim over a Jones fight for the opportunity to become the undisputed UFC heavyweight champion of the world.
