Tom Aspinall has a (not so) secret weapon forward of his UFC 304 rematch with Curtis Blaydes.
The Briton, who will defend his interim heavyweight crown towards the American grappler virtually two years to the day after he sustained a severe knee damage within the opening seconds of his first showdown with Blaydes in London in 2022, informed Ariel Helwani on Monday’s version of The MMA Hour that he has taken some inspiration from the age-old traditions of bare-knuckle boxing in Eire and the UK forward of the Manchester battle card on July 27.
“You ever see the documentary Knuckle? You acquainted with that? It’s a documentary about travellers, travelling communities within the UK [and Ireland]. And there’s a man on there, ‘Large’ Joe Joyce, an previous touring legend, and ‘Large’ Joe Joyce reveals just a few gypsy strategies for preparing for a battle,” Aspinall, the proprietor of 11 knockouts from his 14 wins, stated.
“I needed to resort again to a little bit of gypsy heritage that I’ve acquired, so I believed, proper, what I’m going to do is I’m going to make a bit of ring out of hay bales.
“When it will get to about 4 am, I get my alarm on, I am going exterior, do a bit shadowboxing within the hay bales after which I do the previous traveller technique of dipping your knuckles in petrol for about 20 minutes because the solar’s developing, and that hardens your knuckles.
“These are a few of the hardest knuckles within the UFC proper right here proper now,” Aspinall added. “They’re like rocks.”
The rematch with Blaydes comes as Aspinall has thus far been pissed off in his makes an attempt to safe a battle with the recognised UFC heavyweight champ, Jon Jones, who seems prone to battle Stipe Miocic upon his return from a pectoral damage — probably in New York Metropolis in November.
However whereas he needs to get his arms on undisputed UFC gold, Aspinall says he can’t overlook how particular his battle will likely be later this month. “That is the aim,” he stated. “That is the dream. That is it. In two weeks’ time, that is the dream — defending a UFC heavyweight title in my residence metropolis of Manchester in entrance of 25,000 Manchester followers is one thing that, most likely half a proportion of the world will get to stay the dream on this degree.
“And I’m not speaking about simply combating, I’m simply speaking about folks with desires and targets typically. It doesn’t matter what occurs on that day, I did it and I skilled it, and my complete life’s been main up thus far.”
