Tom Aspinall is coming off of the best performance of his career. The English heavyweight faced his toughest competition to date, and he did not disappoint.
During the main event of UFC London, Aspinall defeated the Heavyweight veteran Alexander Volkov by submission in the first round.
Despite facing his toughest opponent to date, Aspinall shared that he wasn’t at all intimidated by the Russian heavyweight.
So much so, that even before the fight, Aspinall was already certain that he would win it.
According to the Englishman, Volkov attempted to scare him with a pre-fight staredown. The intimidation attempt backfired on him. Aspinall shared that he felt a lot more confident after seeing that the Russian was attempting to scare him.
“Volkov would not take his eyes off me. And I think he thought he was gonna intimidate me, I actually laughed at it,” Aspinall said at the UFC London post-fight press conference. “Like, you can ask (my corner), [Volkov] was looking over and I just went like, ‘Ha!’ And I think it was all downhill from there for him.”
At the end of the day, Aspinall was right to be confident about the match up. He put on an absolute clinic and finished the fight in under four minutes.
The promising heavyweight now eyes another step up in competition. Aspinall is looking to clash with the Australian Tai Tuivasa in a potential title-elimination bout. Tuivasa is on a roll after his devastating knockout over Derrick Lewis. The Australian is on a 5-fight win streak and is ranked number 3 in the division. Meanwhile, Aspinall is on a 7-fight win streak and is undefeated as a UFC fighter. The Englishman climbed 5 spots in the rankings after his last performance. He is now the number 5 ranked fighter in the Heavyweight division.