Reflecting on the injury, Aspinall admits the knee is something that has bothered him since his UFC debut, but the quick wins and rise up the heavyweight ranks kept forcing him to put off a proper recovery. Although he spent time rehabilitating the knee each camp, he said it would occasionally lock up on him when he knelt on the ground. A second headlining bout in London was too much to pass up, though, so he powered through the way fighters do.
“There was a lot of pressure,” Aspinall said. “I felt like if it’s a card in London, I feel like I should be on it, especially if it’s the main event. Everybody has a lot of respect for Curtis. I’m a fighter. This is my job. This is what I love.”
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Aspinall had the O2 Arena in the palms of his large hands as he made the walk to the Octagon. As he readied himself for a fight that could really throw him into title contention, he drank in the scenes, which included fans constantly singing, “Tommy Aspinall, Aspinall! Tommy Aspinall!”
However, when he threw a low kick against Blaydes in the opening moments of their fight, the knee locked up and “everything went” as he stepped back.
“The most frustrating thing is I didn’t get to have a fight I trained for,” he said. “It’s a fight I thought I was going to win and that had title implications, and it turns out I was on my back after 15 seconds and not able to move my leg for six weeks.”
