Tom Aspinall has bested sixty percent of the UFC's top ten in his weight class but wants to say that he's beaten a hundred percent of the promotion's top ten heavyweights in the coming months. During a sit down interview with Adam Catterall for One-on-One, the reigning UFC heavyweight champion covered several subjects in the wake of being upgraded from interim champions tatus after the prior titleholder Jon Jones vacated the belt to retire form MMA outright.
When discussing what kind of things get him fired up now that he is the divisional kingpin at heavyweight officially, Aspinall said,
“Everything excites me—this is heavyweight MMA at the top level. Anything can happen. Just because I’m ranked number one in the world, the undisputed champion now, doesn’t mean nobody can beat me. I know what heavyweight division’s like. You’re never further than one strike away from disaster. There’s a few guys I’ve not fought… and they’re the guys I want to fight.”
“The guy I’m fighting next is the most dangerous guy that I’m ever going to have to fight. Look at the top 10 now. I’ve beaten six of them. My goal is to beat 10. We’ve got a date. We’ve got an opponent to work towards. Everything’s good and I can finally get my career going again.”
Tom Aspinall says UFC heavyweight division is ' not exactly on fire'
Tom Aspinall is keen to wipe out the entire top ten of his weight class but it's not lost on him that this present era of heavyweight isn't exactly rife with big names anymore like Francis Ngannou or Jon Jones. When the 32-year-old was giving a broader overview of the weight category he helms, during that same referenced interview with Catterall, Tom Aspinall stated [via MMA Fighting],
“The heavyweight division’s not exactly on fire at the moment. From a name point of view. I think the talent’s there. But if you look five plus years ago, just the name value in the top 15 was incredible. We’re talking guys like Fabricio Werdum, Cain Velasquez, [Junior dos Santos], Mark Hunt,
"You look through the top 15 and it’s like wow, that’s incredible. Where as now, even me who’s a heavyweight, I look through the top 15 and I’m like I’ve not really seen [these guys] fight before. I think over the next few years that’s going to change. I think there’s going to be more big fights at heavyweight. People are going to become bigger names, which is great. We just need more up and coming heavyweights doing a bit in the top 15.”
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