Tom Aspinall is finally on the other end of one of the stranger sagas in MMA history and he has gotten into the specifics of his recent upgrade to heavyweight champion with Jon Jones retiring.
During an exclusive sit-down interview with Brett Okamoto for the official UFC YouTube channel, the newly minted heavyweight titleholder delved into several subjects after a frustrating timeline that saw him become the longest reigning interim champion in company history while Jones ambled around with the heavyweight title before the MMA retirement of 'Bones' was announced by Dana White at the UFC Baku post-event press conference.
When touching on his mindset of being upgraded to UFC heavyweight champion outright while illuminating some touchstone moments in the timeline leading to the Jones retirement announcement post-UFC Baku, Tom Aspinall said,
“I would have rather fought for it, of course... I always saw myself as a champion anyway. I think the whole Jon Jones thing was a bit weird—everybody can see that was a strange situation. But luckily, now that is in the past and we can move on, which is good.”
“I was just getting a shower—it was just before midnight—and I started getting calls on my phone that they’d announced it. I knew Jon Jones was going to retire, and I was going to be the champion, but I didn’t expect it last weekend, and I didn’t expect it to be in Azerbaijan. All due respect to Azerbaijan, but it’s just not really what I expected.”
Tom Aspinall sent a strong message about his next fight by former multi-time UFC champion
Tom Aspinall was recently given some intriguing advice from a prominent pugilist, as documented by video footage posted on Aspinall's YouTube channel, recently. This took place while Aspinall was in attendance at UFC 317, and he had a conversation with Israel Adesanya during the International Fight Week card that caught the attention of many. Adesanya said [via MMA Knockout on SI],
"The interim title means something. If Rob [Whittaker] had beat me it would have been a title defense for him. When you beat and defend your belt, it is a defense, never let them take that away from you."
