Tom Aspinall is ready to return to the Octagon.
The UFC heavyweight contender says he has recovered from the surgery he needed after suffering a knee injury in his 15-second TKO loss to Curtis Blaydes at UFC London this past July.
“The knee is fantastic right now,” said Aspinall at a special UFC 30th anniversary Q&A recently. “Back in training. Hey, listen. I just want to get one thing straight. We need to secure another UK card for this year, and I got that big Polish dummy calling me out online. So if Marcin Tybura wants it, let’s bring him back to the UK this summer. Come on, please.”
Ahead of his return, Aspinall expressed interest in Tybura, who has yet to schedule his next fight after a unanimous decision win against Blagoy Ivanov at UFC Vegas 68 this past February.
“At the moment, there’s not many free guys in the top ten,” said Aspinall. “Everyone’s matched and as far as I can see, he’s the only guy who’s willing to take the fight. He wants the fight, he said it verbally. And if someone says publicly that they want to fight me, of course, I want to fight. I’m not backing down from no one. We’re two European guys, let’s do it in the UK.”
In response to Aspinall, the 37-year-old said he would love to fight someone with a ‘higher ranking’ than him. At this time, Aspinall and Tybura are ranked at No. 5 and No. 10, respectively.
Prior to his loss, Aspinall was on a four-fight win streak that included ‘Performance of the Night’ awarded finishes of Andrei Arlovski, Sergey Spivak and Alexander Volkov.
About the author: Kristen King is a writer for Bloody Elbow. She has covered combat sports since 2016. (full bio)
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