Tom Aspinall knows all there is to know about the waiting game. The UFC interim heavyweight (heavy-wait?) champion has fought only once in the last 16 months. And who knows why? His obvious next opponent is Jon Jones, the sport’s GOAT. But Jones may or may not be thinking about tapping out and retiring at age 37. He may or may not be holding out for a bigger payday. He may or may not be thinning out and dropping to a different weight class.
For Aspinall, the frustration of waiting comes garnished with a side of humiliation. When Jones fought Stipe Miocic for the Heavyweight at Madison Square Garden last November, Aspinall was flown in as a standby in case one of the fighters was unable to compete. It’s always good to have a backup plan, of course. But the understudy is seldom the guy holding the belt. “It is what it is,” Aspinall said at the time, literally biting his tongue to avoid saying more and risking the wrath of the promotion that employs him.
If he’s in his rights to throw a tantrum over this shabby treatment, you’ve got the wrong guy. Sensationally violent as he is in the Octagon, he cuts a sensationally chill figure in his day-to-day life. (This is a figure who upon visiting my office was happy to turn down a proper drink and share a kombucha.)
Aspinall was never an obvious champion. Growing up in greater Manchester, U.K., his physical growth spurts were accompanied by emotional ones. He found fighting early, married early, had three children early. When his son, now eight, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, he went about learning more about autism privately and demystifying it publicly.
As he awaits his next assignment, Aspinall visited with Sports Illustrated.
This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Sports Illustrated: This [uncertainty] does not seem to be taxing you mentally. Does not seem to be stressing you out.
Tom Aspinall: I mean, it could be if I chose [for] it to, if I chose to be stressed, anything could. I would try not to. I'm trying not to. And just let's just try and relax and enjoy it.
SI: What’s more intense? The joy of winning or the dejection of losing?
TA: Well, I've not lost many, right? So I'm a lot more experienced at winning than losing. It's a good way to be. It's the best way to be. But I think the fear of losing, the fear of not wanting to feel that s— feeling of losing makes winning better. Like if there was no such thing as losing, then it wouldn't be as ecstatic to win.
SI: What's the most challenging thing to you about being a fighter?
TA: Uh, getting punched in the face isn't my favorite thing to do. Don't really enjoy it. In all honesty.
SI: Go deeper there.
TA: I don't really like getting punched and kicked. To be honest. I just don't really enjoy it. It's not my fault.
SI: So, when it happens, what's the response?
TA: It's part of the sport. You use the technical and mental aspects of the sport to [get escape from the physical pain]. . . I really enjoy it. There's no sport that I'm more drawn to than two people fighting. I don't know why that is. I feel like that's just ingrained in my DNA somewhere. For some reason.
SI: Ever play a team sport?
TA: Yeah. I don't really enjoy it though. I played them. Football. Bits of rugby. Like rugby is quite big where we're from. But team sports are not really my thing. Like I realized when I was playing rugby, I enjoyed the contact part, running into each other, knocking each other on the floor. But I didn't really enjoy, like, the technical bits with the ball. So then I was like, You might as well just carry on fighting, because what's the point in running after this ball? Just to do the contact part.
SI: It’s all on you. There's no teammates.
TA: Right. I didn’t like that either. Sometimes, I played really well and we lose.
SI: This is not a conventional sport you're in. How does this play with your kids?
TA: They're used to it, so they don't really know any different.
SI: But do they go to the fights? Do they know what dad does?
TA: Yeah, they know. As long as they've been alive, I've been fighting professionally. It's just completely normal for them.
SI: What's your happiest fighting moment?
TA: I've had a really good career so far, I think. I've had a lot of happy moments. I think it's not even a moment. It's just like not having to do stuff that I don't want to do in my life. I'm financially secure now. I wouldn't choose to live any other way than going to the gym twice a day. I'm spending time with my kids, which is what I get to do all the time. So just being able to do that kind of tops anything else really. There's no boss; I don't have to answer to anybody. I can just do whatever I want, which is great.
SI: You don't look like a guy that blows up between fights, weight-wise.
TA: Yeah I can do normal stuff. As I'm getting a little bit older, I'm just enjoying that stuff less, to be honest. Like going to the pub and drinking and eating bad food. I just like living a healthy lifestyle, having a routine. That's when I'm mentally at my sharpest … When I have a goal, I have a routine and I just stick to that.
SI: What's your relationship with fame?
TA: Up and down. It's got a lot of good stuff about it. And a lot of the problems that I've got, they're pretty good problems to have. I was told by my favorite fighter of all time, GSP [Georges St-Pierre] — like, he's one of the most famous fighters ever— I asked him, what do I do?
He said, It's pretty easy. If you don't like fame, just go lose. Yeah, no one gives a s— when you lose three fights in a row. I don't think it's something you ever get used to. And especially the bigger you get, the goalposts just change all the time. I'm not like the most famous person in the world, of course, but, um, it's still something that I'm adjusting to.
SI: Why GSP?
TA: Because I like the way he is as a person, first of all. I like the way he behaves outside the odds, you know? And I just think that, for me, he transcended what it is to be a “cage fighter.” He became like a UFC athlete. And it wasn't looked at that way before. It was all these cage fighters getting in and just punching each other like the local tough guy. Whereas now, we’re well recognized athletes. I feel like a lot of that is down to GSP because he was such a classy guy. He performed so well athletically as well as technically.
SI: What’s your reaction to tension with your opponent?
TA: He's irrelevant to me. Doesn't matter. The only opinions that matter to me are people I actually care about. I know a lot of people say I don't care what this person thinks. Honestly, unless I know someone personally, why would I be upset?
SI: Your work with autism figures prominently in your life. What do you want people to know?
TA: I can only speak about the U.K., where I live. In the U.K. now, it's so difficult to get a diagnosis. Really, really difficult. And there's a lot of lost parents out there who can't get a diagnosis for their kids. So my goal is to try and change that. I'm just an MMA fighter. That's all. But I do have a bit of a platform to make awareness more and get these diagnoses quicker. I know firsthand that there are hundreds of thousands of parents at the moment in the U.K. [who are looking for answers from doctors] because I was there.
SI: This is personal.
TA: This is personal for me. I don't know how we change it, but I know that talking about it doesn't do any harm.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as UFC Champion Tom Aspinall Q&A: MMA Star Talks Next Fight, Autism Awareness Efforts.
