No professional sports athlete is immune to psychotic internet fandom behavior, including Tom Aspinall.
The current Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) interim Heavyweight champion, Aspinall, has been a positive figure and entertaining fighter in and out of the Octagon since joining the promotion in July 2020. Obviously, the British superstar most certainly should not die, but some Jon Jones fans would, sadly, rather he did, according to Aspinall.
“People on the internet are wild,” Aspinall told Lord Ping. “You have to kind of see it for what it is. It’s not real life, a lot of it comes from jealousy. People don’t like to see other people do well, unfortunately that’s the way of the world. With a lot of love comes a lot of hate as well. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, unfortunately.
“I’m human so it affects me sometimes,” he continued. “But I try to just turn a blind eye to it and just crack on. The internet is a strange place. I clicked on my message requests by accident the other day and people are sending me death threats for wanting to fight Jon Jones, who’s the best in the world and it’s madness. You just think what the f—k is going on in your life that you want to say that you want to kill somebody else because they want to fight, it’s madness.”
The Heavyweight division in UFC has spiraled out of control, or perhaps logic, with the undisputed titleholder, Jones, sidelined for the foreseeable future after he tore his pectoral muscle ahead of UFC 295 this past November 2023. As a result, Aspinall entered on short notice to knock out Sergei Pavlovich in 69 seconds (watch highlights) and start a feud with Jones that won’t have a resolution anytime soon.
Upon Jones’ return, he’s expected to have his original UFC 295 match up against Stipe Miocic rebooked, leaving Aspinall to wait and defend his interim crown in the meantime. Rumblings have surrounded a possible Aspinall return at UFC 300 in April 2024, but options are limited and he would think some crazier types of possibilities are likely, if any are to come.
“With the Jon Jones palaver and all the politics around that, I was thinking maybe they’d give me some freak show kind of fight against Brock Lesnar, or maybe at UFC 300 they’d do something a bit out there like Alex Pereira, but that doesn’t look likely now,” Aspinall said. “I have absolutely no idea about my next move. I’m kind of waiting about.
“I absolutely would be ready for UFC 300, I believe now it’s about three months away and I have been training twice a day since a week after my last fight,” he continued. “So my body is in good shape right now. I could easily turn it up a few notches and be ready for UFC 300. But there isn’t really a realistic opponent. The only realistic ones would be Pereira or Lesnar and they’re not really realistic. Everyone else is kind of tied up right now so my hands are tied.”