Tom Aspinall, the Ultimate Fighting Championship interim heavyweight titleholder, doesn’t fancy sitting on the sidelines. If he can’t fight for undisputed gold, he’d rather defend his title.
He won the title with a knockout victory over Sergei Pavlovich, the Russian knockout machine, at UFC 295 in November. The match was a last-minute arrangement after Jon Jones was forced to pull out of his title clash against Stipe Miocic due to an injury.
Despite Aspinall’s interim gold win, Dana White, the UFC CEO, has been clear. Miocic will get the next shot when Jones returns to the competition. Aspinall had initially rallied for Jones to be stripped of the title. However, the Englishman seems to have shifted his focus.
Aspinall recently expressed interest in defending his interim strap. The winner of the UFC 299 clash between Curtis Blaydes and Jailton Almeida at the Kaseya Center in Miami on March 9 is his preferred opponent.
The idea of facing the Blaydes-Almeida winner was presented to Aspinall on social media. Aspinall suffered his only Octagon defeat against Blaydes when he injured his knee 15 seconds into their UFC Fight Night 208 encounter.
“Winner of Blaydes Almeida sounds good,” Aspinall wrote on X.
Blaydes is coming off a first-round knockout loss against Pavlovich at UFC Fight Night 222 this past April. Almeida, on the other hand, hasn’t lost a fight since 2018. This streak includes six UFC wins. “Malhadinho” is fresh off a lopsided decision win over Derrick Lewis in November, which is his first career win via decision.