Aspinall also revealed who he believes is the best heavyweight ever.
UFC heavyweight Tom Aspinall has quickly risen to contender status over the past couple of fights, and a title shot is not too far away for the Englishman.
Aspinall (11-2) has compiled a perfect 5-0 record in the UFC, winning four Performance of the Night bonuses along the way. His submission win over former Bellator champion Alexander Volkov last month in London solidified his status as a contender. Perhaps down the line he may get the chance — whether for the title or for a title shot — to take on the man he feels is heavyweight’s greatest of all-time.
“In my opinion, Stipe is the best heavyweight of all-time,” Aspinall said on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani. “I think he deserves an instant rematch. Stipe doesn’t get the love he deserves, in my opinion.”
Miocic, who hasn’t fought since his knockout loss to Francis Ngannou last year, is targeted for an interim title bout against Jon Jones. Nothing is set in stone on that front, however. His mark as an all-time great heavyweight is well established through his wins over Alistair Overeem, Junior dos Santos, Francis Ngannou, Fabricio Werdum, and of course taking two out of three in the trilogy with Daniel Cormier.
As far as who’s the GOAT in UFC history, that’s always been subject to debate among fans and fighters. In Aspinall’s eyes, it’s a no brainer that Georges St-Pierre is numero uno on the list of all-time greats, and he has his reasoning.
“Of course he’s No. 1, who else is it gonna be?” Aspinall said. “This is what I think: To be the greatest of all time, this is gonna sound like madness, but GSP first of all did it in two weight divisions. Also, GSP had some bad losses and came back. To me, that is a sign of a real champion. Of course you can be like Khabib, and you can be all the rest of it, and that’s brilliant, but what does he do under the adversity? We still don’t know because he’s that much better than everybody else. But in my opinion, two weights, that’s the difference. The two weights.”
St-Pierre’s “bad losses” were to Matt Hughes and Matt Serra, avenging Hughes twice over and emphatically taking the welterweight title back from Serra at UFC 83 in the promotion’s first show in Canada. Everyone GSP has ever faced he’s defeated, and he retired by winning the middleweight title from Michael Bisping after not competing for four years. No one has more successful title defenses at welterweight (9) than St-Pierre, and as Aspinall notes he went up to another weight class and struck gold one last time to cap off a remarkable career.
No word yet on what’s next for Aspinall, but he’s certainly on track to at least challenge for the heavyweight belt very soon.