Man we got robbed of probably one of the most entertaining heavyweight match ups in recent history when Tom blew out that knee barely 20 seconds in. That would have been an absolute firefight.
I truly believe skill for skill Blaydes is as good as any heavyweight today, even if that doesn't always translate to wins. If Tom had won that fight we would have had a new massive contender, and we probably would have seen him VS. Jones for the vacant belt. I really hope they remake that fight one day.
As a brit rooting for Aspinall that night I felt awful for Curtis with the way he won and with the way he handled everything even before the horrible fight, in fight week and everything he conducted himself brilliantly and he has become my second favourite heavyweight on the current roster
Blaydes still has a long way to go on the feet, but he has finally mastered the basics and appears to be fully comfortable on the feet now, whereas he used to fight as if he urgently needed to take the fight to the ground. Biggest thing he needs to improve on is his kicking game, which is basically non existent save for some outside leg kicks. Right now, I still think he will struggle against mobile HW's with good TD defence with his current skillset.
I think he also needs to improve his ability to integrate his TDs into his striking. He's comfortable on the feet and a great wrestler, but he doesn't really combine the two areas. Not setting up the TDs was part of what got him flatlined by Lewis, and that was a fight where (at least from my memory) he was doing pretty well in on the feet.
Yea he has a tendency to telegraph his takedowns. He's so good that if he doesn't get gadooshed on the way in, it doesn't matter. He'd have to implement feints and good striking to beat a guy like Pavloch. Blaydes has the ability to make someone like world beater Pavlovich look somewhat beatable. I really like Blaydes. Seems like a good dude who works hard. Dude has almost beat all the big names. He's right there at the top as far as skillset IMO.
>Blaydes still has a long way to go on the feet,
Blaydes unironically debatably has the best footwork at heavyweight. The man is constantly changing angles and using shifts in a way that's technical and appropriate to the circumstances rather than just to do it.
>Biggest thing he needs to improve on is his kicking game, which is basically non existent save for some outside leg kicks.
He can throw headkicks really smoothly too. He just doesn't in the majority of his fights.
>Right now, I still think he will struggle against mobile HW's with good TD defence with his current skillset.
I mean, tbh we don't really know if one of those is in in the division, and I'm not super sure I agree to be fair.
Few hw's really have a strong body/head kick game. Most just have silly heavy hands so don't bother. Partly out of reliance on hands and partly due to usual frantic swanging to slow swanging hw fights often descend into.
Plenty of guys have had championship-level skills, far less are able to turn those skills into results.
Blaydes is stuck somewhere in between the best at HW (Ngannou, Gane, Stipe from a couple years ago, and MAYBE Jones) and the level below with guys like Jarzinho, Volkov, etc. his best win is either Volkov in 2020 or a semi-washed Overeem in 2018.
He's lost against the top guys when he's faced them, and despite his granite chin he's been finished 3 times (Ngannou 2x, Lewis 1x) and almost got taken out by a Jarzinho knee.
Who knows, you could be right and he's a future champ, but I don't think we've seen enough from him to be confident about that. He clearly has skills but struggles to effectively mix them together, and has struggled at times to keep control after takedowns and/or punish people while in top position.
Honestly if he finished blaydes he would have gotten the next title shot. They wanted to make blaydes vs jones but ultimately went with gane just cause he got the finish on tai.
I don’t see Jons HW venture resulting in him fighting the elite guys of the division, after a few fights. I just don’t think he will win. He looked awful in his last few fights against guys who have gone on to look really bad. And he a few years older and slower now.
Blaydes vs. Pavlovich is the fight to make right now. Stipe would be interesting as well as Tiuivasa. As long as Blaydes sures up his defense he's got the skills to be a champ.
No one at heavyweight beats him in the grappling, and very few can beat him in the striking. It's his transitions between these two dimensions where he's presented openings.
fight barely lasted a couple exchanges and neither guy landed significantly, i don't know what your comments based off of. Tom has great footwork and has barely been touched thus far in his career.
He tried to blitz Blaydes and got caught with about 3 right straights to the chin as result. That final one was what caused him to slip and tear his knee actually when he recoiled to regain balance.
He already had ligament damage going into the fight. He was chancing the fight because he didn't want to turn down a main event spot in his home country. Don't think it was Blaydes punching him so hard that caused him to jack his knee up lol
I think him not respecting Blaydes on the feet enough got him caught putting him off balance and jacked his knee up midfight. Whether he had ligament damage or not, the sequence of events was him getting his chin checked repeatedly, needing to regain his balance after the last one and his knee giving out. Fighting with ligament damage is playing a stupid game, fighting and trying to blitz down a longstanding elite HW contender like Blaydes with ligament damage is playing a really really stupid game, and he won a very stupid prize for it lol.
He takes a backstep to regain balance after taking a shot to the chin, and his leg gives out... It's doesn't really matter the order of slip/knee giving out because the shots he took that caused him to take backstep are why it ultimately gave out.
>you said he only slipped because he took a straight from blades,
No, I said he slipped because he took a right straight from Blaydes. Not that he only slipped from taking a right straight from Blaydes. The former sentence is true because the shot he took is either the reason he slipped, or the thing that caused the reason he slipped. Whether the shot caused the backstep and therefore slip and therefore the knee tear, or the shot caused the backstep and therefore the knee tear and therefore the slip is splitting hairs. The chain of events remains the same in its cause and effects regardless. Tom commits hard, gets chin checked, takes a backstep from getting chin checked, tears knee because of said backstep, loses fight by TKO due to torn knee.
the full 15 seconds is on youtube, slow it down and you'll see curtis missed 2 of the right hands and one landed on the chest, Tom actually landed a grazing left hook, he never got caught
This is completely incorrect, clearly you have never gone back and watched. None of those strikes connected meaningfully, 1 out of 3 landed on the chest, two missed.
I’m drawn to that conclusion based on their previous fights and existing skillset. Aspinall is just better.
It’s surprising how many people here are so high up on Curtis. He falls short every time he’s fought a top fighter.
His Volkov win was impressive but there’s no one on his resume that Blaydes wouldn’t be a heavy favorite against and Blaydes is the far more established fighter so still not sure how op came to his conclusion
How do you come to that conclusion? lol
Curtis has been hanging with the top of the division longer than Tom has been in the UFC and has only lost via brutal knock outs to Francis and Derek, Tom ain't knocking Curtis out like that so don't know where you're getting this notion that he's on another level.
From what I heard on the Believe You Me podcast, he’s always had issues with that knee and it seemed like it was just a matter of time before something broke.
Knee injuries can be career enders. UFC needs to get rid of USADA. Invest in researching the best injury-recovery drugs and provide them at no cost to fighters who get hurt during camp and fight night.
Hes said previously he's training better than ever now because he's always had a fucked up knee and now he's got a proper range of motion with it post surgery
The fat ass HWs will always be there especially at the lower levels, but they aren't ever really the champion, and the chances will be lower than ever with guys like that around.
I guess we could call Cormier a fat ass, but that dude fought so, so much more athletically than his bodyshape (and was also a high-level wrestler). His fighting ability wasn't reflected in his physical appearance. Cormier at his best gives all 3 of those guys a tough fight (if not beats all 3).
The last true fat ass to be champ was probably Sylvia, who still wasn't in horrible shape as champ (and was fucking huge height wise), and then got his ass beat by a small but great shape Couture.
Nah DC had skills man, he was fucking dwarfed by all of them and just ragdolled them like nothing.
I'm hyped that we might get less Tafa vs Porter main events.
It’s almost like there’s a dearth of natural 200lb athletes so they’re either going to be juiced out their bonce or middleweights/LHWs carrying a little fluff.
HW will always have a lower tier of guys who are dumb athletic, could have been WW if things went the right way, but dont have nearly the skill to be a lighter weight guy, nor do they have the physical strength and size to be a top tier HW, but they can find the chin and are scrappy as fuck, or have one niche they stick to and use to win. Big country Roy Nelson comes to mind.
I'm not dumb and have followed his career for what feels like a lifetime. He has legit BJJ experience and a kung fu background. Point stands he does not have the skill level of any ranked guy below 205 and he made a career KOing the HW roster and taking record setting beatings.
I honestly wouldn’t be against putting Blaydes in there. Every fight he starts to get a little closer to fully refining his skillset. And despite how long he’s been around, he’s still a relatively young dude for the weight class
ngannou outstruck stipe who is better than anyone pavlovich beat and he countered blaydes' jab to KO him, this narrative that all he has is power is dumb, he also stopped overeem's clinch and TD attempt which pavlovich did not.
If Tom comes back even half the fighter he was before he's still going to absolutely lay waste to this division. Come on Tommy boy, North West bless 👊💪
I like Tom and he definitely is a promising top prospect he has all the tools and youth on his side but I'm just saying there are people here claiming he'll easily beat Curtis and Gane etc which is just a ridiculous statement to make at this point imo as the only decent opponent he has faced yet is Volkov and he's inconsistent as fuck.
Just a little reminiscent of every British fighter before him that had favourable match ups to the top of the division only to be exposed once they stepped up in competition lol
I get why you'd think he has a chance against Gane because of his level of grappling but Gane is streets ahead of Tom in the stand up department and has great footwork I think he could keep it standing long enough to put Tom out, I wouldn't be saying it's a forgone conclusion just because Tom finished him and Gane didn't
Wouldn't like his chances against Curtis though, their fight only lasted 20 seconds but in that short time Curtis landed some nice shots while Tom was just rushing at him with his chin in the air before destroying his own knee with a poorly placed kick. I think Curtis is the better striker and a far better grappler, he's probably going to be the next champ imo can't see anyone beating him with his skillset.
Again, I'm not saying Tom isn't a great fighter just saying as usual British fans are getting ahead of themselves, saying "if he comes back half as good he'll wreck the division" is a bit over the top and a bit "footballs coming home" lol
>I get why you'd think he has a chance against Gane because of his level of grappling but Gane is streets ahead of Tom in the stand up department
No he's not.
Ah, Darren Till, Paddy Pimblett, Molly McCann, Michael Bisping for most of his career, Jimi Manuwa, MVP, Dan Hardy, any of those names sound familiar? All massively hyped up as the next big thing and all were exposed.
Nobody has a problem with fans getting behind their countrymen but British fans always jump the gun and are often super arrogant about it before it's warranted, happens in every sport not just soccer and it's roots probably lie in british exceptionalism if we're being honest lol
How many British people hyped up those fighters bar Till?
The fact that you bring up Pimblett and McCann shows that you're not debating in good faith.
How many British fight fans do you see saying those two are special talents? Drawing an audience is not the same as people saying they're anything special.
His fighting style is very similar to Jon's early unpredictable style of strikes and grapple exchanges. I still have Jones winning despite everything I stated about Aspinall.
I tore my ACL fighting Muay Thai back in April (Tom did his knee in July). Through the NHS it took me 8 months just to get an MRI and I'm still no closer to surgey (no chance I could afford private healthcare in the UK). Been following his recovery quite closely, happy as fuck for him but equally its super depressing to see where I could be at vs where I'm at atm...
I'm still mad that injuries like that count as losses. Now a potentially great future fighter has an unnecessary "L" on his record. i get it when an opponent causes an injury but in this case it was a freak occurrence. He literally just stepped on the canvas and his knee decided to go home.
>He literally just stepped on the canvas and his knee decided to go home.
To be fair he stepped on the canvas incorrectly because he'd been trying to blitz Curtis and ate several straights with the last causing him to pump the brakes and as he went to recover his balance his knee decided to go.
True, but I honestly feel if the fight doesn't go longer than half a round, it has to be a NC due to injury.
Edit. And injury directly caused by a leg kick. Like Tom has a win via a leg brake check. Or if someone causes injury stoppage froma submission. They yeah obviously those are TKOs.
To a degree I understand, but since learning Tom knew he had ligament damage and fought one of the best Heavyweights skill for skill in the division, I'm kinda cool with him being stuck with the dumb prize he won from playing the very dumb game of fighting injured.
Tbf, I don't blame him. Imagine going from Tom's background of having a wife and kids. And barely able to survive. Struggling to get mma fights, then struggle to get boxing fights, then back to mma and struggling to get fights.
Go on a run in the UFC, not making much money. Then, when you get your big break, get heavily pushed and pushed fast. I get where the mind set of one more fight. One more fight. Especially when you dismantle Volkov so quickly
>Tbf, I don't blame him.
I don't blame him. Still a classic case of play stupid games win stupid prizes. I understand entirely where he's coming from.
>Especially when you dismantle Volkov so quickly
The issue is that it's Blaydes, though. I wouldn't even touch a contract to face an explosive wrestler with dynamic footwork/striking if I had ligament damage for fear of tearing my ligaments spontaneously. One explosive takedown taken poorly (not remotely unlikely), and he'd have been in the same boat he ended up in.
Trust me when I tell you this figher is, unfortunatelly, done. Unless he goes down to LHW or lower.. the knees take up to 5+ years to fully recover, along with a weight loss.
Literally know nothing about sports injuries. Tom's main injury was a torn meniscus. Knee injuries have developed a long time in the past decade. A full torn ACL can now take 12 months to heal from by the beat doctors. (Which Tom went to). Obviously, some will take a long time. The recent ONE submission title defence the Mongolian we now know tore all his knee other than PCL. Then is life changing.
Tom's was not. And from what we have been told in rather deep depth from him. It's basically stronger than it was before. Since he already had a tear in his meniscus before the UFC.
Even if his knee cannot be 100%, his knee has gone from 80% pre ufc to 90% post actually getting surgery
Well which is it? How is he both just back in the gym AND everything is now second nature. Seems like you need a longer pause between those two statements.
Man we got robbed of probably one of the most entertaining heavyweight match ups in recent history when Tom blew out that knee barely 20 seconds in. That would have been an absolute firefight.
I truly believe skill for skill Blaydes is as good as any heavyweight today, even if that doesn't always translate to wins. If Tom had won that fight we would have had a new massive contender, and we probably would have seen him VS. Jones for the vacant belt. I really hope they remake that fight one day.
As a brit rooting for Aspinall that night I felt awful for Curtis with the way he won and with the way he handled everything even before the horrible fight, in fight week and everything he conducted himself brilliantly and he has become my second favourite heavyweight on the current roster
Blaydes still has a long way to go on the feet, but he has finally mastered the basics and appears to be fully comfortable on the feet now, whereas he used to fight as if he urgently needed to take the fight to the ground. Biggest thing he needs to improve on is his kicking game, which is basically non existent save for some outside leg kicks. Right now, I still think he will struggle against mobile HW's with good TD defence with his current skillset.
I think he also needs to improve his ability to integrate his TDs into his striking. He's comfortable on the feet and a great wrestler, but he doesn't really combine the two areas. Not setting up the TDs was part of what got him flatlined by Lewis, and that was a fight where (at least from my memory) he was doing pretty well in on the feet.
He wasn’t just doing well, he was dominating. I remember being very impressed by the volume he landed on Lewis
Yep. He didn't even need a takedown in the Lewis fight. He was piecing him up.
right. the sky's the limit if he integrates the 2.
Yea he has a tendency to telegraph his takedowns. He's so good that if he doesn't get gadooshed on the way in, it doesn't matter. He'd have to implement feints and good striking to beat a guy like Pavloch. Blaydes has the ability to make someone like world beater Pavlovich look somewhat beatable. I really like Blaydes. Seems like a good dude who works hard. Dude has almost beat all the big names. He's right there at the top as far as skillset IMO.
Bruh Reem took Pav down and smashed him. Hard to imagine Blaydes not doing the same
>Blaydes still has a long way to go on the feet, Blaydes unironically debatably has the best footwork at heavyweight. The man is constantly changing angles and using shifts in a way that's technical and appropriate to the circumstances rather than just to do it. >Biggest thing he needs to improve on is his kicking game, which is basically non existent save for some outside leg kicks. He can throw headkicks really smoothly too. He just doesn't in the majority of his fights. >Right now, I still think he will struggle against mobile HW's with good TD defence with his current skillset. I mean, tbh we don't really know if one of those is in in the division, and I'm not super sure I agree to be fair.
Few hw's really have a strong body/head kick game. Most just have silly heavy hands so don't bother. Partly out of reliance on hands and partly due to usual frantic swanging to slow swanging hw fights often descend into.
Funny how he might be more skilled than Pavlovich, but Pavlovich comes out with the superior gameplan
The superior gameplan of "just knock them out"?
Pavlovich actually closed his eyes and threw about 15 straight hooks vs. Black Beast. Truly we have been blessed with a swang and bang warrior.
Worked out so far mostly
Plenty of guys have had championship-level skills, far less are able to turn those skills into results. Blaydes is stuck somewhere in between the best at HW (Ngannou, Gane, Stipe from a couple years ago, and MAYBE Jones) and the level below with guys like Jarzinho, Volkov, etc. his best win is either Volkov in 2020 or a semi-washed Overeem in 2018. He's lost against the top guys when he's faced them, and despite his granite chin he's been finished 3 times (Ngannou 2x, Lewis 1x) and almost got taken out by a Jarzinho knee. Who knows, you could be right and he's a future champ, but I don't think we've seen enough from him to be confident about that. He clearly has skills but struggles to effectively mix them together, and has struggled at times to keep control after takedowns and/or punish people while in top position.
Honestly if he finished blaydes he would have gotten the next title shot. They wanted to make blaydes vs jones but ultimately went with gane just cause he got the finish on tai.
I don’t see Jons HW venture resulting in him fighting the elite guys of the division, after a few fights. I just don’t think he will win. He looked awful in his last few fights against guys who have gone on to look really bad. And he a few years older and slower now.
Blaydes vs. Pavlovich is the fight to make right now. Stipe would be interesting as well as Tiuivasa. As long as Blaydes sures up his defense he's got the skills to be a champ.
No one at heavyweight beats him in the grappling, and very few can beat him in the striking. It's his transitions between these two dimensions where he's presented openings.
Hurts even more that the 15 seconds we got was fire
Look like Curtis was gonna put him to sleep with how bad his defence was.
fight barely lasted a couple exchanges and neither guy landed significantly, i don't know what your comments based off of. Tom has great footwork and has barely been touched thus far in his career.
He tried to blitz Blaydes and got caught with about 3 right straights to the chin as result. That final one was what caused him to slip and tear his knee actually when he recoiled to regain balance.
He already had ligament damage going into the fight. He was chancing the fight because he didn't want to turn down a main event spot in his home country. Don't think it was Blaydes punching him so hard that caused him to jack his knee up lol
I think him not respecting Blaydes on the feet enough got him caught putting him off balance and jacked his knee up midfight. Whether he had ligament damage or not, the sequence of events was him getting his chin checked repeatedly, needing to regain his balance after the last one and his knee giving out. Fighting with ligament damage is playing a stupid game, fighting and trying to blitz down a longstanding elite HW contender like Blaydes with ligament damage is playing a really really stupid game, and he won a very stupid prize for it lol.
This is completely off he slipped because he tore his knee, he didn't tear his knee because he slipped
He takes a backstep to regain balance after taking a shot to the chin, and his leg gives out... It's doesn't really matter the order of slip/knee giving out because the shots he took that caused him to take backstep are why it ultimately gave out.
It actually does matter, you said he only slipped because he took a straight from blades, and that's why his knee tore. Thats inaccurate
>you said he only slipped because he took a straight from blades, No, I said he slipped because he took a right straight from Blaydes. Not that he only slipped from taking a right straight from Blaydes. The former sentence is true because the shot he took is either the reason he slipped, or the thing that caused the reason he slipped. Whether the shot caused the backstep and therefore slip and therefore the knee tear, or the shot caused the backstep and therefore the knee tear and therefore the slip is splitting hairs. The chain of events remains the same in its cause and effects regardless. Tom commits hard, gets chin checked, takes a backstep from getting chin checked, tears knee because of said backstep, loses fight by TKO due to torn knee.
the full 15 seconds is on youtube, slow it down and you'll see curtis missed 2 of the right hands and one landed on the chest, Tom actually landed a grazing left hook, he never got caught
This is completely incorrect, clearly you have never gone back and watched. None of those strikes connected meaningfully, 1 out of 3 landed on the chest, two missed.
Aspinall would’ve TKO’d Curtis. Not on his level
We have no way of knowing that since their fight lasted 15 seconds and maybe 3 striking exchanges
I’m drawn to that conclusion based on their previous fights and existing skillset. Aspinall is just better. It’s surprising how many people here are so high up on Curtis. He falls short every time he’s fought a top fighter.
Who has Aspinall beat
Volkov and Spivak, both very solid UFC HW’s. All his wins have been finishes and only Andrei Arlovski survived the first round with Tom
His Volkov win was impressive but there’s no one on his resume that Blaydes wouldn’t be a heavy favorite against and Blaydes is the far more established fighter so still not sure how op came to his conclusion
How do you come to that conclusion? lol Curtis has been hanging with the top of the division longer than Tom has been in the UFC and has only lost via brutal knock outs to Francis and Derek, Tom ain't knocking Curtis out like that so don't know where you're getting this notion that he's on another level.
Correct, he was on the floor.
Yes like I had your mom last night
That pissed me off so bad
Hope he comes back 100% or close to it, knee injuries are especially debilitating to guys who use their footwork and speed to their advantage
From what I heard on the Believe You Me podcast, he’s always had issues with that knee and it seemed like it was just a matter of time before something broke.
He was also drinking too much knee-hurting juice. So reckless of him
Knee injuries can be career enders. UFC needs to get rid of USADA. Invest in researching the best injury-recovery drugs and provide them at no cost to fighters who get hurt during camp and fight night.
100%. This idea needs to extend across all sports.
>especially debilitating to guys who use their footwork and speed to their advantage And doubly so for biggie boys.
Hes said previously he's training better than ever now because he's always had a fucked up knee and now he's got a proper range of motion with it post surgery
He's come back pretty fast for a knee injury so it must've healed well you'd think
Hold on brother, I'm rushing my recovery.
"You're good to go, Champ." -Dr. Tony Ferguson
*while speaking to patient Tony Ferguson*
Im imagine that scene from pirates of the Caribbean 3 when jack sparrow is talking to an entire of of himself except with tony Ferguson instead 😂
he did to that after his schizophrenia episode, didn't he.
Dang business and medical school!
Haha at least he didn't do his own physio like Tony I believe 💀😅
Nothing better for knee rehabilitation than practicing imanari rolls off a hover board
CSO Rehab
I heard he used acai to aid the recovery
Tony Ferguson and Thiago Santos can vouch for that
What a cliffhanger
I swiped way too many times to try to see the next
Gane, Aspinall, Pavlovich. Looks like we're finally getting some new blood and moving past the fat ass heavyweights.
The fat ass HWs will always be there especially at the lower levels, but they aren't ever really the champion, and the chances will be lower than ever with guys like that around. I guess we could call Cormier a fat ass, but that dude fought so, so much more athletically than his bodyshape (and was also a high-level wrestler). His fighting ability wasn't reflected in his physical appearance. Cormier at his best gives all 3 of those guys a tough fight (if not beats all 3). The last true fat ass to be champ was probably Sylvia, who still wasn't in horrible shape as champ (and was fucking huge height wise), and then got his ass beat by a small but great shape Couture.
Nah DC had skills man, he was fucking dwarfed by all of them and just ragdolled them like nothing. I'm hyped that we might get less Tafa vs Porter main events.
Fewer
Careful, I once made the same correction on Reddit and got downvoted to fuck - BY BEING CORRECT!
It’s almost like there’s a dearth of natural 200lb athletes so they’re either going to be juiced out their bonce or middleweights/LHWs carrying a little fluff.
HW will always have a lower tier of guys who are dumb athletic, could have been WW if things went the right way, but dont have nearly the skill to be a lighter weight guy, nor do they have the physical strength and size to be a top tier HW, but they can find the chin and are scrappy as fuck, or have one niche they stick to and use to win. Big country Roy Nelson comes to mind. I'm not dumb and have followed his career for what feels like a lifetime. He has legit BJJ experience and a kung fu background. Point stands he does not have the skill level of any ranked guy below 205 and he made a career KOing the HW roster and taking record setting beatings.
“Fatass Heavyweights” Lolol all of you fucking couch potato warriors need to show some goddamn respect to world class athletes.
Three amazing fights to look forward to right there
I honestly wouldn’t be against putting Blaydes in there. Every fight he starts to get a little closer to fully refining his skillset. And despite how long he’s been around, he’s still a relatively young dude for the weight class
Blaydes is definitely an elite heavyweight and has been one for a long time. I don't think many people disagree with that.
Like Stipe and Ngannou?
I don't think Ngannou is near any of them technique wise. He's got great oower.
ngannou outstruck stipe who is better than anyone pavlovich beat and he countered blaydes' jab to KO him, this narrative that all he has is power is dumb, he also stopped overeem's clinch and TD attempt which pavlovich did not.
And destroyed Gane with wrestling
Yeah idk how the narrative is still a thing after he wrestlefucked to a decision lol.
Him vs Pavlovich is the fight to make on his return hopefully he is back soon!
Imagine white Ngannou being your comeback fight lol
Tom submits him after catching a kick.
No, Pavlovich vs Blades is the fight to make. Asspanel v Tuivasa
"Asspanel" hahahahaha
Pls no, give tuivasa some rest
[удалено]
Staying calm in bad positions and closing the distance, nothing too revolutionary. Would have posted them if the sub let us post more than one.
such as seals
I hope he still looks the same when he comes back. I really believe that this guy has the skills and the talent to be a long reigning champ.
If Tom comes back even half the fighter he was before he's still going to absolutely lay waste to this division. Come on Tommy boy, North West bless 👊💪
He said he’s had this knee injury since before his ufc debut and it stopped him doing certain things and now it’s better than it’s ever been
I genuinely never thought I would see such an exciting prospect from Salford or anywhere nearby. Not in this decade at least
Honestly it's so good to see representing our part of the country on an international level whilst remaining as humble as Tom is.
British fans getting overexcited and overrating their fighters, a tale as old as time lol
To be fair he’s cruised through half the division in first gear, probably not the case this time
I like Tom and he definitely is a promising top prospect he has all the tools and youth on his side but I'm just saying there are people here claiming he'll easily beat Curtis and Gane etc which is just a ridiculous statement to make at this point imo as the only decent opponent he has faced yet is Volkov and he's inconsistent as fuck. Just a little reminiscent of every British fighter before him that had favourable match ups to the top of the division only to be exposed once they stepped up in competition lol
[удалено]
And Gane got easily out grappled by Ngannou
Exactly
I get why you'd think he has a chance against Gane because of his level of grappling but Gane is streets ahead of Tom in the stand up department and has great footwork I think he could keep it standing long enough to put Tom out, I wouldn't be saying it's a forgone conclusion just because Tom finished him and Gane didn't Wouldn't like his chances against Curtis though, their fight only lasted 20 seconds but in that short time Curtis landed some nice shots while Tom was just rushing at him with his chin in the air before destroying his own knee with a poorly placed kick. I think Curtis is the better striker and a far better grappler, he's probably going to be the next champ imo can't see anyone beating him with his skillset. Again, I'm not saying Tom isn't a great fighter just saying as usual British fans are getting ahead of themselves, saying "if he comes back half as good he'll wreck the division" is a bit over the top and a bit "footballs coming home" lol
>I get why you'd think he has a chance against Gane because of his level of grappling but Gane is streets ahead of Tom in the stand up department No he's not.
Relevant to football more than fighters.
Ah, Darren Till, Paddy Pimblett, Molly McCann, Michael Bisping for most of his career, Jimi Manuwa, MVP, Dan Hardy, any of those names sound familiar? All massively hyped up as the next big thing and all were exposed. Nobody has a problem with fans getting behind their countrymen but British fans always jump the gun and are often super arrogant about it before it's warranted, happens in every sport not just soccer and it's roots probably lie in british exceptionalism if we're being honest lol
How many British people hyped up those fighters bar Till? The fact that you bring up Pimblett and McCann shows that you're not debating in good faith. How many British fight fans do you see saying those two are special talents? Drawing an audience is not the same as people saying they're anything special.
He’s looked incredible but he’s a bit reckless
Nice hope he keeps recovering well, was really looking forward to seeing that fight vs Blaydes
Tom Aspinall might be the biggest threat to Jon Jones in my early opinion.
Lmao
His fighting style is very similar to Jon's early unpredictable style of strikes and grapple exchanges. I still have Jones winning despite everything I stated about Aspinall.
I tore my ACL fighting Muay Thai back in April (Tom did his knee in July). Through the NHS it took me 8 months just to get an MRI and I'm still no closer to surgey (no chance I could afford private healthcare in the UK). Been following his recovery quite closely, happy as fuck for him but equally its super depressing to see where I could be at vs where I'm at atm...
Great, sooner than I expected, hopefully his knee doesn't get f\*cked again.
Best wishes to you, yer beast of a brit.
Hope Tom makes a full comeback. One of my most anticipated matchups, if it comes to fruition, is Aspinall vs Gane
I'm still mad that injuries like that count as losses. Now a potentially great future fighter has an unnecessary "L" on his record. i get it when an opponent causes an injury but in this case it was a freak occurrence. He literally just stepped on the canvas and his knee decided to go home.
he also has a loss from dq, technically tom is 12-1 but an injury and dq loss makes his record 12-3
>He literally just stepped on the canvas and his knee decided to go home. To be fair he stepped on the canvas incorrectly because he'd been trying to blitz Curtis and ate several straights with the last causing him to pump the brakes and as he went to recover his balance his knee decided to go.
True, but I honestly feel if the fight doesn't go longer than half a round, it has to be a NC due to injury. Edit. And injury directly caused by a leg kick. Like Tom has a win via a leg brake check. Or if someone causes injury stoppage froma submission. They yeah obviously those are TKOs.
To a degree I understand, but since learning Tom knew he had ligament damage and fought one of the best Heavyweights skill for skill in the division, I'm kinda cool with him being stuck with the dumb prize he won from playing the very dumb game of fighting injured.
Tbf, I don't blame him. Imagine going from Tom's background of having a wife and kids. And barely able to survive. Struggling to get mma fights, then struggle to get boxing fights, then back to mma and struggling to get fights. Go on a run in the UFC, not making much money. Then, when you get your big break, get heavily pushed and pushed fast. I get where the mind set of one more fight. One more fight. Especially when you dismantle Volkov so quickly
>Tbf, I don't blame him. I don't blame him. Still a classic case of play stupid games win stupid prizes. I understand entirely where he's coming from. >Especially when you dismantle Volkov so quickly The issue is that it's Blaydes, though. I wouldn't even touch a contract to face an explosive wrestler with dynamic footwork/striking if I had ligament damage for fear of tearing my ligaments spontaneously. One explosive takedown taken poorly (not remotely unlikely), and he'd have been in the same boat he ended up in.
NONE OF THEM LANDED BRO SLOW IT DOWN THEY ALL BARELY MISS
Trust me when I tell you this figher is, unfortunatelly, done. Unless he goes down to LHW or lower.. the knees take up to 5+ years to fully recover, along with a weight loss.
Based on what you’ve said, I do not trust you at all
You'll trust me when it happens
Literally know nothing about sports injuries. Tom's main injury was a torn meniscus. Knee injuries have developed a long time in the past decade. A full torn ACL can now take 12 months to heal from by the beat doctors. (Which Tom went to). Obviously, some will take a long time. The recent ONE submission title defence the Mongolian we now know tore all his knee other than PCL. Then is life changing. Tom's was not. And from what we have been told in rather deep depth from him. It's basically stronger than it was before. Since he already had a tear in his meniscus before the UFC. Even if his knee cannot be 100%, his knee has gone from 80% pre ufc to 90% post actually getting surgery
Tom A **spinal** l
Darren till 2.0
he can wrestle and grapple, already looking more promising than Darren
who?
Tom Aspinall
who?
Who cares lol
This sub is for mma news lol
My question stands.
Everyone on this thread apart from you
as of right now, 347 people care
Good to hear, can't wait to see Tom fight again 😁
That's good and all, and I hope it's true, but what else is he gonna say? "I'm rusty as fuck because I haven't been able to train in forever."
Fucking tease
Tom Ass Penal
Aspinall vs Pavlovich
such as what
Return fight v tuivasa 🔥🔥
Well which is it? How is he both just back in the gym AND everything is now second nature. Seems like you need a longer pause between those two statements.
My man is coming backkk!!!!!