Heavyweight Tom Aspinall looking for UFC win against hard hitting Marcin Tybura
Tom Aspinall (12-3, fighting out of Atherton, England) returns to the Octagon looking for a statement win. Nine wins by KO, three by submission 4 first-round finishes Has won five of his last six
06:05 These are all fighters, obviously there's Almeida and Blades.
06:08 These guys are good, mate.
06:10 It's not like ten years ago when they were all old, fat heavyweights who were just standing there punching each other.
06:16 These are guys who are not even in the prime yet, so I think we've got an exciting ten years ahead of us in the heavyweight division.
06:24 It's going to be a great time.
06:25 How far off from a title fight do you think a big stoppage win this weekend will put you?
06:32 Heavyweight MMA has its own rules, in my opinion.
06:36 If I'm ranked number five and I fight ranked number ten, which is what's happening,
06:42 and I lie on him for five rounds and it's a boring fight, it's not really going to move me up at all.
06:48 But if I go out there and knock him out in 30 seconds with some crazy spinning elbow, that's going to put me as a number one contender.
06:54 That's just the way it works, mate.
06:55 It doesn't always come down to rankings, it's like impressive performances.
06:59 It all depends on how the fight goes Saturday.
07:01 What kind of finish am I going to get?
07:03 What kind of win am I going to get?
07:04 How the fight's going to go?
07:06 I don't know, we'll just see.
07:08 Last one from me.
07:10 When you've spoken to us in the past and you've talked about wanting to fight Jon Jones one day,
07:14 back then you said you weren't ready.
07:16 Do you think you're ready now?
07:18 Yes.
07:19 Perfect, thank you.
07:20 Just to go off the back of that, Jon Jones is going to be fighting Stipe Miocic.
07:25 What do you think about that matchup?
07:27 How do you think it goes down?
07:29 I think it's interesting.
07:31 I think it's difficult to pick a winner really, because Stipe now is getting a little bit long in the tooth, I would say.
07:44 He's got a lot of miles on the clock and he hasn't fought for like two or three years now, and that's going to be difficult.
07:52 Oscar, can you move your head please?
07:54 I can't see the lady behind you, thank you.
07:57 He's just getting his head in the way, he's very rude.
08:00 I think it's difficult to know where Stipe is at at this point, whereas Jon Jones, we know exactly where he's at, he's just had a great performance.
08:09 It's heavyweight MMA, you can never say exactly what's going to happen at obviously the highest level, but I would say that Jon Jones has the edge definitely.
08:19 Do you see Jon Jones sticking around for much longer after that fight?
08:23 I hope so, that's my dream fight.
08:26 My goal in the future moving forward is not only to win, but I want to excite Jon Jones.
08:32 I want him to look at me and think, I keep saying it in interviews and stuff, but at this point he probably doesn't know who I am.
08:38 He probably doesn't, and that's fine.
08:40 But I want him to watch me fight in the next few fights and think, I need to stick around for this guy, this guy deserves...
08:47 I want him to look at me and think, I need to test myself against this guy and be excited about guys like me coming through and want to take that challenge.
08:56 How do you see yourself matching up with Jon Jones?
08:58 Pretty good, pretty good.
09:00 Tom, when you're doing a job that you love to do, it's an amazing thing, it's an amazing feeling,
09:10 but when that opportunity is taken away from you, whether it be through injury or other things, it can be a really difficult thing for your mental health.
09:17 How did you find this last year in terms of mentally not being able to do that job that you love to do?
09:24 I found it pretty difficult, to be honest.
09:27 After a couple of months I was alright, maybe less.
09:30 The toughest bit was not being able to walk for me.
09:33 And like you say, at first I was like, I didn't know how long I was going to be out for.
09:39 It's alright, even losing a fight, say I got knocked out or I lost a points decision or whatever,
09:44 you know that in three months you're going to get another crack at it.
09:47 Whereas with me it was like, I didn't know when I was going to be able to train again,
09:51 didn't know when I was going to be able to fight again.
09:54 It was a tough time, mentally it's a really tough thing to suffer an injury in front of millions of people and be sat at home on your own, unable to walk, that's quite tough.
10:03 Was there anything that was a springboard for you to start feeling better about it,
10:09 or was it simply once your body started healing, your mind started feeling better?
10:12 Once I was able to start the rehab process and stuff, I was alright,
10:16 because I literally treated it like a training camp, getting my knee right.
10:21 My physio would always give me two-week goals, so it would always be like, in two weeks you need to be doing this.
10:27 So it always gave me something to look forward to.
10:30 I really had great people around me to help me get back to where I am,
10:35 and I really kept everything good in terms of what I was putting in my body, the rest I was taking.
10:42 I think you can tell from my physique now that I didn't just get fat over the time that I was away,
10:48 I took everything really serious, I probably took the rehab process more seriously than I've taken any training camp, and I'm not even joking.
10:56 I put all good stuff in my body, took the right rest, hypnotherapy, I did everything to get back better than when I left.
11:03 Thanks very much, mate. Best of luck.
11:05 I know you said that you don't want to speak about the knee injury too much, and you're kind of sick of speaking about it,
11:14 but you're already known as being one of the most athletic fighters across any weight class.
11:20 Do you think that there's going to be a bit of a surprise from the people to see how different you look post-surgery?
11:25 Yeah. A lot of people, well the close people to me know that I was getting through these training camps and fights with one leg,
11:35 and that's not over-exaggerating. So I think me with two legs definitely has a lot more to offer than me with one leg.
11:44 So I think it will surprise a few people the way I move around the octagon on Saturday.
11:49 Does that obviously include your kicking game? I'm guessing that's something that's evolved over the...
11:55 Yeah, not just kicking though, there's all kinds of stuff that there's certain movements I couldn't do, I couldn't grapple for too long.
12:00 I was barely grappling at all before. I would be on my knees for half an hour and I'd have to stop training because my knee would be swollen.
12:07 So that's gone, and I've done some great, great training with great heavyweights for the full camp.
12:15 It's not been light, we've had the odd heavyweight... Every single day mate I've got heavyweights to train with,
12:19 which is a pretty rare thing, so I'm really happy about that and how my body feels responding to that as well.
12:24 I know you mentioned it there about the physio and how seriously you took that.
12:28 You mentioned that during that time you were asking your physio to set you goals for you to hit.
12:35 How important do you think that was to do that during the recovery?
12:40 Me personally, I need a goal, otherwise I'm just treading water, it's just boring.
12:45 That's when I do start getting a bit down in the dumps, when I'm just stuck doing nothing, aimlessly going through life,
12:54 I don't really like that stuff, I need something to work towards, so it's very important for me.
