Leon Edwards and Tom Aspinall are adjusting their clock for the odd UFC 304 start time in England.
Despite UFC 304 taking place in Manchester, England it was revealed the UFC is keeping the start time normal for U.S pay-per-views. Meaning, that the prelims are set to begin at 11 pm UK time with the main card set for 3 am UK time. It has made many fans angry, and for Edwards and Aspinall, they are already working on getting themselves adjusted to the odd start time.
Leon Edwards and Tom Aspinall discuss how they will approach preparing to fight at 6am at #UFC304.
Edwards has hired a sleep specialist and Aspinall says he will just copy what Edwards is doing.
— MMA Orbit (@mma_orbit) June 9, 2024
tomaspinallofficial / YT
“I have a mad theory on what I was going to do, and it’s completely different to [his],” Tom Aspinall said (via GiveMeSport). “Now I’m just going to copy Leon’s version.”
“At the start I was similar [to Tom],” Edwards said. “I was like ‘Oh, I’m going to have to sleep in the day and be awake at night.’ But when I spoke to [a specialist], he said you can’t do that cuz your body needs sunlight, you need daylight. So he basically said somehow you have to adjust it so you don’t have to train at 5:00 in the morning, you have to get your body used to about 1, 2 in the morning, and after that you should be fine.
“Because when I’m fighting at 11, I’m not training at 11. I’m done by 6 in my house. So he says moving the clock a little bit hour by hour, six weeks out, bit by bit, get to about 2 o’clock, and that’s where you want it. You’ll still get sunlight, you’ll still be able to train. So it’ll be good,” Edwards continued.
Tom Aspinall, meanwhile, says he first thought about moving his camp to Las Vegas and then get use to that time and fly over to England on fight week, as if it were any other fight. But, he opted against them and will use Edwards’ method, which he paid for.
“My first thought was I’m going to go to Vegas,” Tom Aspinall revealed. “And we’ll do the last four weeks of the camp there and I’m going to come back. And then I thought, ‘You know what? Being 6’5, sitting on a plane for 12 hours, that alone f—s you up.’ So I don’t think I’m going to do that.”I think I’m going to copy your model. Did you pay for that?”
Edwards replied: “I did pay for that. You can’t have it.”
It’s clear that the start time has been something the local fighters have needed to focus on.
UFC 304 Fight Card features Leon Edwards, Tom Aspinall
UFC 304 is set to take place in Manchester, England on July 27.
The fight card is as follows:
- Leon Edwards vs. Belal Muhammad – welterweight title fight
- Tom Aspinall vs. Curtis Blaydes – interim heavyweight title fight
- Arnold Allen vs. Giga Chikadze
- Muhammad Mokaev vs. Manel Kape
- Bobby Green vs. Tom Aspinall
- Nathaniel Wood vs. Daniel Pineda
- Shauna Bannon vs. Ravena Oliveira
- Molly McCann vs. Bruna Brasil
- Caolan Loughran vs. Ramon Tavares
- Mick Parkin vs. Lukasz Brzeski
- Christian Leroy Duncan vs. Robert Bryczek
- Sam Patterson vs. Kiefer Crosbie
- Modestas Bukauskas vs. Marcin Prachnio