Tom Aspinall has admitted that UFC heavyweight title unification delays against Jon Jones have become more mentally difficult than the toughest time in his career.
Tom Aspinall has been sitting on the sidelines now for almost a year, with his last fight being an interim title defense against Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304 last July.
The British star has been waiting for a potential announcement of a title unification fight against Jon Jones, who continues to delay the negotiations.
Despite Jones’ recent hint at retirement, he took to social media not long after in an attempt to ease fans’ worries, alluding to a return to the UFC.
Tom Aspinall makes upsetting admission regarding Jon Jones delays
The 37-year-old champion seemingly has no remorse regarding the continuous delays, telling fans to ‘cry more’ when told to stop delaying Aspinall’s career.
Jones has been accused of ‘mentally exhausting’ Aspinall by his former opponent, Anthony Smith, who claimed that ‘Bones’ is a master at doing just that.
And in a recent interview with Demetrious Johnson, the interim champion admitted that the continuous delays have been more mentally difficult than when he went through a career-threatening injury.
In the 32-year-old’s first meeting against Blaydes in 2022, the fight came to an unceremonious end when Aspinall suffered a brutal injury to his knee, which sidelined him for over a year.
Since then, the Brit has opened up about how mentally taxing it was on him to be out of action for such a long time, unable to train and compete.
“It was obviously devastating to get injured in front of everybody and stuff. But anyway, it was a tough time for me. Came back, took me a year with the rehab… So it was a tough couple of months mentally.
“But I always had a little goal to work towards. Now, I’ve been almost a year inactive with no prospect of anything apart from wait. So now is actually a little bit more of a tricky time for me mentally than it was then.
“I constantly had little goals to work towards, whereas now it’s like, ‘Right, just be ready and we’ll let you know’, it’s kind of difficult mentally,” he continued.
Tom Aspinall training with kickboxing world champion
Fortunately though this time around, Aspinall is able to keep himself busy by staying in training and helping his teammates prepare for their upcoming fights.
One of whom is GLORY kickboxing world champion, Rico Verhoeven, who returns at GLORY 100 in a few weeks’ time.
Despite the Brit not being officially in camp, he has been training extensively with the Dutch fighter, preparing for a potential call from the UFC.