Michael Aswell Jr. had barely finished catching his breath after his hand got raised at UFC 331 when his mind jumped somewhere else entirely. Not to his own performance. He was thinking about getting back to his seat so he could watch his training partner Joshua Van compete for the flyweight title.
The only problem was that Aswell wasn’t exactly free to just walk back into arena and grab a spot in the crowd. So during his post-bout interview, he turned to the one person who could actually make it happen.
“And Joe, if you could help me out and try to get me back into this arena so I can watch my brother compete, that’d be a blessing,” Aswell asked Rogan.
Rogan didn’t hesitate.
“We’ll get you back in here. Congratulations, sir,” he replied.
It’s a fair request that comes with more logistics than people might expect. Athletes who just finished competing don’t get to simply wander back to a seat once the cameras stop rolling.
There are medical checks to get through, media commitments to handle, and a long list of obligations that come before anyone gets to relax, and most of the time there isn’t a ticket with their name on it waiting in the stands either.
None of that mattered much to Aswell in the moment. He wanted back inside, and he wanted to see how Van’s night would end.
The stakes for Van were about as high as they get on the flyweight roster. ‘The Fearless’ was defending his title against Alexandre Pantoja in a rematch that carried plenty of unfinished business. Their first meeting had ended in strange fashion when Pantoja went down with an arm injury less than 30 seconds into the match, handing Van the belt without giving him a real opportunity to prove he belonged there.
This time, the 24-year-old champion had a chance to settle that question properly, while Pantoja got his shot at reclaiming what he’d lost under such unusual circumstances.
For Aswell, this match meant something beyond the typical card interest. He and Van are close friends and training partners out of 4oz FC in Houston, Texas, and Aswell has openly credited that partnership with sharpening his own game ahead of UFC 331.
“It’s really fast, it’s a lot of combination attacks, and it’s very tricky because it’s often body attacks,” Aswell said of training with Van during the UFC 331 post-bout press conference.
Working alongside the flyweight champion in the gym also pushed Aswell into territory he doesn’t usually have to deal with. He’s typically the one applying pressure and forcing opponents to react, so having Van consistently come forward on him in sparring gave him a different perspective, one that ended up paying off once he stepped into the Octagon himself.
“Honestly, the sparring experience with him helped me greatly,” Aswell said. “It is difficult to deal with when someone is pressing hard. I usually put pressure on my opponent, but if I spar with someone putting pressure on me, I can learn to fight back.”
That lesson showed up clearly against JooSang Yoo. Aswell pushed the pace for all three rounds, working behind combinations and finding a home for his overhand right while Yoo tried to manage the distance with his jab and leg kicks. The second round followed a similar pattern, with both men trading at range before Aswell landed another clean right hand off a clinch break, even as Yoo kept disrupting his timing with straight punches and kicks of his own.
The third round is where things got tense. Yoo picked up his output, strung together his own combinations, and eventually got Aswell to the mat. He held top position for a stretch, but Aswell defended well, scrambled back to his feet, and closed the fight out standing. Still, that late takedown left plenty of doubt heading into the scorecards.
When the decision came back, it was as tight as it gets. Two judges scored it 29-28 for Aswell, while the third had it 29-28 for Yoo. Aswell admitted the result caught him off guard.
“I thought I won the first two rounds for sure,” he said during the press conference. “My opponent made a takedown at the end of the third round, so I thought I might give up that round. So when the split decision came out, I was embarrassed, and honestly, I was scared. This is because the judgment results do not always come out in an advantageous way.”
The tension around that scorecard made sense once you consider what Aswell had riding on it. He had recently signed a new UFC contract, but that didn’t put his mind at ease. He pointed out that a solid record alone isn’t always enough to keep a roster spot secure, and with two consecutive losses already behind him, another one could have put him in a tough spot heading into contract conversations.
“I feel really good. I thought I had to win this game because I was in a two-game losing streak,” he said. “At UFC, players with 7 wins and 1 loss and 6 wins and 2 losses will also be released. Three consecutive defeats are a terrible feeling, and I really dislike losing. No one is safe in the UFC.”
