I am nit a Tom hater. I really li,e him and hope he has a long career. Tom has an easy road ahead of him for a long time imo. I look at his division and cant find a person me cant easily beat.
Gane, no wrestling. One takedown by Tom and its over. If he can keep it standing he has a shot, but I dont see it happening
Curtis has all the tools to beat Tom but he has a very low fight IQ.
Pavlo only has a punchers chance, he is also low IQ though
Volkov wil get wrestlefucked and subbed again
The other guys are too small are just not good enough.
The best opponents for Tom is Jon Jones and Alex. Jon wants Rickson dollars so the fight wont happen. I think Alex is the best challenge for Tom that can happen, but he will be giv8ng up a lot of weight and he cant stop the takedown I think.
I dont see an up and coming fighter that will challenge him in 3 or 4 years either.
If Tom can stay healthy he will waltz into the ufc HOF.
Tom was a nobody not that long ago.
Aspinall wasn’t in the discussion vs Jones. It was Ngannou or Pavlovich.
Both those guys are now out of the picture.
Point is, someone will come along.
Heavyweight has always suffered with lack of depth.
Jon showed nothing his last 4 fights that makes you think he beats Aspinall
Gets KOed if he fights like he did on saturday
Zero chance he subs tom like he did Gane
Lost 6 of 10 rounds against Santos and Reyes
Heavyweight is the last weight class that anyone should feel comfortable or unbeatable.
Anyone of those guys mentioned can touch any man on earth and sleep them.
He has advantages against them all, but to say its gonna be easy is a mistake.
Which makes what TOm has done very very impressive even if the division isn’t very deep. Look at his record and look at how fast he smokes these guy, that simply cannot be dismissed.
If Jones retires, there’s no one interesting at heavyweight for Tom in the UFC. There’s a Russian HW champ at One. I forget his name, but he’d be a good matchup. Dude has got heavy hands.
It looks that way but in practice you never know. Could be that Gane has worked his ass off with his defensive grappling skills and improved them significantly. Jailton although one dimensional and on the smaller side would be the best grappler Tom has faced too.
Its a weird division these days. Tom could clear it out Jones included and his resume STILL wouldnt seem good enough to have him in the HW GOAT discussion. There just isnt the depth of big name talent that there once was.
Aspinhall doesn’t have any major wins to make any determination about him yet. The division sucks, for all we know he can’t even beat Gane, who basically beat Ngannou, but got obliterated by Jones.
I know there’s a recent video of him struggling and failing to take down a rugby guy multiple times.
Yeah Ugo Monye, who is in his 40s and would probably be competing at MW if he was in MMA.
Its a shame MMA cant tap into that rugby talent pool. MMA pays better than rugby these days and yet somehow rugby is loaded with athletic HW sized talent even now while HW and LHW MMA are at low points.
Aspinall doesn’t have enough octagon time in the UFC for me to really get behind him. I think many fans just want to see JBJ beaten. (Me being one of them- he is a very charismatic POS but he has incredible fight IQ). Aspinall seems like a great guy overall and seems to have the talent to manhandle the entire division.
JBJ vs Gane was an absolute farce. He got in Gane’s head. (Gane has those stoic Alex Pereira vibes). That fight could have and should have gone further. I think if Ciryl was in the right head space (also coming off his first loss) the fight would have been much more competitive. I hope Gane has been really working the wrestling and bjj during his off time. I want him to come back and make another run. He has so much potential. In the meantime, Aspinall fights Jones.
The heavyweight division has struggled since the Stipe vs DC era. Ngannou winning the belt was exciting and the division was looking up… but then got super stagnate while Ngannou held out for his payday that never came with the UFC. Then the up and coming fighters just started to drop (literally and figuratively). You are right, Aspinall has everything at his fingertips. Dana needs to pay Jon and make the fight.
Also, most of Jon’s fights were guys outside of their prime and guys much smaller than him. I still think Reyes won and certainly made him look beatable.