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First Things First

The best active heavyweight in the world is defending their interim title this weekend. Tom Aspinall is rematching the hulking Curtis Blaydes. Today we’re going to talk about what makes him so special.

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Tom Aspinall

Aspinall looks like he could be an all time great. The British heavyweight uses a blinding mix of technique and power to propel himself to victory. But he’s not special because of what he can do.

Aspinall is special because of how he chooses to move between the techniques he can do. Let’s back up a bit and talk about how he got to be so technical.

After you read Aspinall’s background you know he was built to be somebody. Tom’s father, Andrew, left his career as a contractor to teach jiujitsu. Apparently, he planned on teaching jiujitsu in the hopes that his kids would as well, and they’d have a head start in their career.

Those children took to training better than most parents could hope for.

Aspinall won the British BJJ Open at every belt, besides black. At 18 he started his amateur career and went undefeated. He then turned pro at 21, 10 years ago.

Since then going pro, none of Aspinall’s fights have lasted longer than 10 minutes. Doing tape study on his professional career took less than an hour.

You hear that and you expect a submission savant. After all, he was practically raised in a jiujitsu gym training under his father and he’s a 260-pound black belt.

Then you look at his record and see 11 knockouts to just 3 submissions. How? Timing, transitions, and decision-making.

See, Aspinall knows when to employ which of the tools he’s sharpened and the way he blurs the lines between them points to why he’s a generational talent.

Technical Takeaways

Let’s take a look at how Aspinall has finished his opponents so fast. We’ll start by looking at how his grappling ability facilities striking finishes.

Grappling to Striking

Early in Aspinall’s UFC career he was matched against the heavyweight grappling specialist, Serghei Spivac. In that fight he showed he can counter as well as he can lead.

In Aspinall’s next fight, he took on the towering Russian striker Alexander Volkov. Aspinall used Volkov’s length against him by getting inside his reach to take him to the ground and beat him up.

Now let’s move on to how Aspinall’s striking can open up grappling exchanges and submissions.

Striking to Grappling

It’s more common to see Aspinall on the lead. He likes to dart in with hard straight punches. If those don’t finish you, they set up later blast doubles that look nearly identical.

As soon as fighters get comfortable striking with Aspinall, he simply takes them down.

Aspinall really is great at moving around strikes to take his opponents down. Let’s go back to the Volkov fight to see how Aspinall finished it.

I would be lying if I said Aspinall is a confusing puzzle with few openings. In reality, Aspinall built his career off of offense and speed being his only defense.

The Curse Of Talent

Aspinall is fast. Like, really really fast for a man his size. Because of that, he gets away with limited defense on the feet and he’s built some bad habits. His head is straight up in the air and he throws naked kicks a lot.

And let’s take a look at how he pulls away from strikes.

Look at Aspinall’s stance above:

1. Feet so narrow they’ve nearly crossed over

2. Hips behind feet

3. Head behind hips

Aspinall often gets completely out of position to get away from strikes. He is begging to get leg kicked or shot on.

It doesn’t always look this bad. But it generally doesn’t look much better either.

Aspinall has even been finished on the floor. Early in his career, Aspinall faced future Bellator, PFL, and Oktagon heavyweight, Stuart Austin. They had a back-and-forth battle with technical depth rare for heavyweight.

I’m not going to pretend getting under Aspinall is a winning strategy. But I think it’s reasonable to say that because so much of Aspinall’s success is based on the speed at which he can move between styles and catch people, if his opponents can extend striking and grappling exchanges, they can catch an overeager Aspinall.

Big if. But it deserves a mention.

Is Aspinall A Generational Talent?

French composer Claude Debussy famously said, “Music is the silence between the notes.” I think you can extend a similar logic to mixed martial arts.

Mixed martial arts is not the sport of using different fighting styles. It’s about how you go back and forth between those styles you choose to train, blend them, and create novel offense. 

Mixed martial arts exists between fighting styles and it emerges as you blend them.

Good MMA fighters have wide offense. They can box and wrestle, kick and submit people off of their back, etc.. Look at Neil Magny. He can strike pretty well, take people down when he needs to, and he’s game everywhere.

Great MMA fighters can do a lot, but are world class at a few specific things. Alex Pereira is having a legendary career and it’s basically all left hooks and calf kicks.

Elite fighters find ways to win by exploiting the unique rules of mixed martial arts; small gloves, a physical barrier, and the integration of striking and grappling, so they can score in the space between the composite fighting styles.

Look at Georges St. Pierre. Jabs, superman jabs, and leg kicks. Then you’re frozen. If you try to fight forward he shoots and you find yourself on the floor.

Or you can study Khabib Nurmagomedov. His entire championship career came off the cage. He would push you back, take you down, and then start hitting. When you got up he would simply put you down to restart the process. But this time he’s tighter, wrist riding and finding openings to punch. Yeah, you can get up again, maybe, but how many more times?

That’s Tom Aspinall. The way he transitions between striking and grappling is rare for a heavyweight.

He lunges with straight punches, bounces out, and you can’t catch him. Now you’re coming forward. You overcommit and he’s lunging with a blast double that you thought was a punch.

Aspinall’s striking sets up his grappling and his grappling sets up his striking so you literally don’t know what’s going to hit you. Then you’re finished.

This weekend Aspinall has a big test. He’s rematching Curtis Blaydes.

Blaydes started his career the same year as Aspinall. He’s gotten 13 knockouts, 1 less than Aspinall has wins. The NJCCA wrestling champion, Blaydes, has never been submitted either. And that’s probably where Blaydes’s path to victory is.

Tie Aspinall up. Wrestle him. Take him to a place he’s never been before, past the second round. Then, maybe, he can catch Aspinall out of position and hurt him. Maybe he can grapple his way to a decision win. Maybe Blaydes can avoid getting his chin cracked for what would be his fifth knockout loss.

Maybe. But against a talent with the speed, timing, and transitional offense of Aspinall you just can’t be confident picking Blaydes. Barring another 15-second freak injury, I can’t see Aspinall leaving with anything less than a win.

It’s Aspinall’s fight to lose. Let’s just pray UFC management can get the two titleholders to unify the belt after this fight. We’ll be here to talk about what happens either way next week.

Come back Friday if you’re ready to read about a different UFC fighter. One of their most controversial stars. We’re going to take a closer look at what makes them interesting so we can finally answer if they’re actually worthy of the controversy, and if they’re any good at all.

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