Tom Aspinall has a (not so) secret weapon ahead of his UFC 304 rematch with Curtis Blaydes.
The Briton, who will defend his interim heavyweight crown against the American grappler almost two years to the day after he sustained a serious knee injury in the opening seconds of his first showdown with Blaydes in London in 2022, told Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour that he has taken some inspiration from the age-old traditions of bare-knuckle boxing in Ireland and the UK ahead of the Manchester fight card on July 27.
“You ever see the documentary Knuckle? You familiar with that? It’s a documentary about travellers, travelling communities in the UK [and Ireland]. And there’s a guy on there, ‘Big’ Joe Joyce, an old traveling legend, and ‘Big’ Joe Joyce reveals a few gypsy methods for getting ready for a fight,” Aspinall, the owner of 11 knockouts from his 14 wins, said.
“I wanted to resort back to a bit of gypsy heritage that I’ve got, so I thought, right, what I’m going to do is I’m going to make a little ring out of hay bales.
“When it gets to about 4 am, I get my alarm on, I go outside, do a bit shadowboxing in the hay bales and then I do the old traveller method of dipping your knuckles in petrol for about 20 minutes as the sun’s coming up, and that hardens your knuckles.
“These are some of the hardest knuckles in the UFC right here right now,” Aspinall added. “They’re like rocks.”
The rematch with Blaydes comes as Aspinall has so far been frustrated in his attempts to secure a fight with the recognised UFC heavyweight champ, Jon Jones, who appears likely to fight Stipe Miocic upon his return from a pectoral injury — possibly in New York City in November.
But while he wants to get his hands on undisputed UFC gold, Aspinall says he can’t overlook how special his fight will be later this month.
“This is the goal,” he said. “This is the dream. This is it. In two weeks’ time, this is the dream — defending a UFC heavyweight title in my home city of Manchester in front of 25,000 Manchester fans is something that, probably half a percentage of the world gets to live the dream on this level.
“And I’m not talking about just fighting, I’m just talking about people with dreams and goals in general. No matter what happens on that day, I did it and I experienced it, and my whole life’s been leading up to this point.”
