Tom Aspinall's dad intimating that his son wanted to make a future move to the boxing world heading into his latest MMA fight was a bit of a misstep according to a former UFC titleholder. This was expressed on the Pound 4 Pound podcast in the wake of UFC 321 with Aspinall's UFC heavyweight tile defense ending in a no contest after an errant eye poke from Ciryl Gane caused the bout to be waved off in the opening stanza.
Henry Cejudo and Kamaru Usman were discussing some of the big fallout from the Abu Dhabi-based pay-per-view from over the weekend with the hosts touching upon an intriguing tid bit that was revealed through fight week by Andy Aspinall. Speaking to RMC Sport Combat, Tom's father Andy mentioned that the UFC heavyweight champion was coming to the end of his contract and the elder Aspinall was more keen on his son looking for opportunities in the sweet science versus re-signing with the UFC right away.
Spotlighting that situation with Andy Aspinall and the potential residual effects of those comments, Usman said,
His dad was saying about him transferring over to boxing... There’s some things that you probably shouldn't say publicly, but obviously—dads will be dads—and they're going to say whatever it is that they want to say."
"And his dad was saying, yeah, they don’t—I don’t think they want to resign with the UFC. So that means... he was on a three-fight contract with the UFC to renegotiate. Now he's down to two because of this fight."
How Tom Aspinall's lone pro boxing bout went
Tom Aspinall has previously fought under Queensberry Rules and his closeness with the Fury family benefitted his preparations heading into his lone showdown in the big gloves. It was a quick night of work for the hulking heavyweight as Aspinall would dispatch of Tamas Bajzath with a first round knockout in June 2017.
The boxing bout mirrored many of Aspinall's MMA fights as he finished Bajzath in less than ninety seconds after dropping him to the canvas three times before eventually securing the win.
