Tom Aspinall may have just pulled off the most elaborate prank on Ariel Helwani. A week or two ago, the British star spoke to Helwani about the unique routine he adopted to prepare for UFC 304. He revealed that he wakes up at 4 am to dip his knuckles in petrol surrounded by hay bales as the sun is rising. Turns out, it was all a joke!
For the uninitiated, Aspinall had claimed that it was a gypsy technique even fighters like Joe Joyce would follow. Helwani, being the journalist he is, posted the story on social media, and the fans were creating quite a buzz about the practice since they hadn’t heard of it before. However, Aspinall recently told Helwani the truth over a video call.
“Nah, we’re taking the p*ss, Ariel, it’s just water. It was all a big f*cking joke. We’ve got to drop the gag because people think it’s serious,” Aspinall said.
Helwani took the joke sportingly as he laughed along with Aspinall and his father. The champ asked the MMA Hour host to drop the gag because people actually believed the story. And knowing MMA fans, they would likely try this themselves, which could be dangerous given that petrol is highly flammable.
However, the 31-year-old did reveal that he actually wakes up at 4 am to train and does have hay bales present with him since he lives on a farm. Besides, Aspinall had to be up that early training hard because he claims his next opponent is tougher than the current UFC champion.
Aspinall is just days away from defending his UFC interim heavyweight title against Curtis Blaydes in front of his home crowd. While many believe that he will still have to beat Jon Jones to claim the true UFC heavyweight championship, Aspinall isn’t too worried about the undisputed champion right now.
In a recent interview with Sky Sports, he revealed that Curtis Blaydes is a tougher opponent than Jon Jones at heavyweight. “I don’t know how Jon Jones looks at heavyweight. We’ve seen him at heavyweight for 1-2 minutes… As a heavyweight, Curtis Blaydes has proven multiple times that he is elite. And he is in his prime, unlike Jon Jones,” Aspinall said.
If the 31-year-old is able to overcome Blaydes, he will end up challenging for the title that currently rests on Jones’ shoulder. And that is the fight everyone wants and should be happening right now.
