The coming weekend at UFC 304, the interim heavyweight title will be put on the line as Tom Aspinall takes on Curtis Blaydes. While many believe Aspinall to be the real heavyweight champion not getting his due to company bias and expect him to run past Blaydes, UFC vet Chael Sonnen believes the American will be the Brit’s toughest challenge.
Sonnen was joined by Daniel Cormier from England in the most recent episode of their show, ‘Good Guy/Bad Guy’ where DC asked Sonnen if Blaydes was a ‘nightmare’ matchup for Aspinall.
Sonnen took it a step further and said that not only was is a nightmare matchup for Aspinall but also Jones. ‘The Bad Guy’ said,
“And not only is the answer yes. Not only for Tom Aspinall, by the X’s and O’s if we had Jon Jones here right now, and ask him, ‘Hey man who has got the skills to give you the biggest problem’ it is without question Curtis Blaydes. Jon Jones is a national wrestling champion Curtis Blaydes won that exact same championship at a different weight class.”
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Sonnen went on to add that Blaydes just needs to be confident in his abilities. If he can do that he could cause serious problems for both Jones and Aspinall. ‘DC’ on the other hand did not agree to this.
DC believes that while Blaydes is a tough matchup for anyone in the heavyweight division, but he is by no means a ‘nightmare’ matchup for either the interim or the undisputed champion.
Now, how much of those opinions are con point will only be seen when Aspinall takes on Blaydes this Saturday.
Aspinall looking to test himself against Blaydes
‘Honey Badger’ joined the UFC in 2020 and made his debut in July of the same year. Since then he has had eight fights in the company.
And the average fight time for Aspinall has been two minutes and 10-seconds. Aspinall is an extremely dangerous finisher who has very easily stopped everyone placed in front of him.
So yeah, he has never gone past the second round in the UFC. As a matter of fact, during his recent media day press conference, Aspinall urged Blaydes to push him to the later rounds. Blaydes said that he would take Aspinall to the deep waters and drown him there.
The British champion said that he is hoping it actually gets to that stage since has has never been pushed hard in the UFC thus far.
