Tom Aspinall’s promotion to undisputed champion could have come at a better time.
The UFC’s interim heavyweight champion for nearly 600 days, Tom Aspinall long chased a title unification with the legendary champion Jon Jones, a bout that never came to fruition.
Jones retired from the UFC over the weekend, with UFC CEO Dana White revealing his decision when he was asked about the state of the heavyweight division at the UFC Baku post-fight press conference in Azerbaijan.
White also confirmed Aspinall as the new undisputed heavyweight champion.
Aspinall’s father and coach wasn’t happy with how the UFC handled Aspinall’s announcement on Saturday night.
Andy Aspinall told UFC brass ‘I can’t think of a worse way you could have done it’
Team Aspinall found out about Aspinall’s championship promotion at around midnight in England.
Aspinall’s father, Andy Aspinall, was brutally honest in his response to UFC chief business officer Hunter Campbell texting him his son had been promoted to the undisputed champion.
“Tom was calling me to tell me that Hunter [Campbell] had told him,” Aspinall told Uncrowned’s Petesy Carroll.
“Hunter text me saying, ‘Dana [White] has just announced that Tom is the champ…’ which was the same message he had sent Tom.”
“I sent a message back to Hunter saying, ‘I can’t think of a worse way you could have done it’.
“I just think it’s, I don’t know if pathetic is the word—I just feel they didn’t think about it. For me, the heavyweight championship of an organization is quite a big thing and I don’t think Tom deserved to find out at a press conference in the middle of the night.”
“I can’t think of a worse way to do it, maybe if they had woken us up to tell us it would’ve been worse,” Aspinall continued.
“We just happened to be awake at the time. It’s poor man management of Jones and Tom. I like the personnel at the UFC, but for me, they just don’t do things right sometimes. Of course it’s a massively successful business, but I think something like that deserved more thought after everything we’ve been through with this.”
Tom Aspinall gets mural as undisputed UFC champion
While the start of his undisputed title reign may have been underwhelming, Aspinall hopes to be an active, defending champion in this new era.
Before last weekend’s promotion, Aspinall had signed a long-term partnership with Champion, a popular sportswear brand.
Aspinall posed for a photo with their new mural, covering the side of a building in Manchester, England.
“There is only one Champion,” Aspinall wrote on Instagram.