We're approaching the second London card of the year and if it is anything like the first, we are in for a fantastic day of competition. I don't if this card really can live up to the first London event of 2022, especially after we lost Darren Till due to another injury, but the hope is that it can get close. I think what gives it a chance is that the main event felt really important for the heavyweight division. That was until I realized that I'm not really sure exactly where the winner of Aspinall vs Blaydes stands. Champion Francis Ngannou stands to be out for the rest of the year after knee surgery and he wasn't likely to fight anyways due to his contract situation. The UFC wants to make a Jon Jones vs Stipe Miocic interim title fight and even though it seems like everyone involved agrees that is the fight to make, we still don't seem to have any momentum towards it happening. Then there is the Cyril Gane vs Tai Tuivasa fight happening in September. I suppose the winner of that fight will fight the winner of this fight to secure number one contender status for the following title shot. Who knows whether that will be against the Stipe/Jones winner or if we'll get a title unification bout or if Francis will leave to box Tyson Fury. The uncertainty surrounding the whole situation had my excitement for this fight a bit down in the middle of the week, but now that we're getting closer, I feel much better about the whole situation. This should be a really good main event with some other interesting fights sprinkled in. Let's start the breakdown.
In the blue corner, we'll see rising, young superstar Tom Aspinall. Aspinall was the man that this whole card was built around and for good reason. He is the perfect mix of hype, potential, and actual results. Aspinall may be one of the most exciting young fighters in all of MMA right now because we can see how good he already is and given his age, we assume he is still improving with every training session. Aspinall is 29 years old, but he feels a lot younger since a lot of the heavyweights around him are in their mid to late 30s. This isn't the first preview I've done for either of these men, so I won't go through their entire resume, but focus more on their recent trend. Overall, Aspinall is 12-2 in his career with one of those losses coming via DQ due to illegal 12-6 elbows. His other loss was in his fourth career fight and was due to a second round heel hook. He hasn't lost since 2016 and is therefore undefeated in his time in the UFC. His last 3 fights are when he started to get real steps up with each fight and he's passed all of those tests in impressive fashion. Those wins came over Andrei Arlovski, Sergey Spivak, and Alexander Volkov all within the first 6:09 of the fight. Despite getting tougher and tougher competition each time out, Aspinall really hasn't faced too much resistance to date. I believe that is mostly due to the athletic advantages that he possesses over almost everyone in heavyweight MMA. Aspinall is incredibly athletic and explosive for his size. His speed both in his strikes and his movement is truly next level and if he can make that the most important thing in this fight, that will go a long way towards him winning. He's also a lot more well rounded than most heavyweights. Unlike almost all UK based fighters, Aspinall comes from a wrestling background. He uses his offensive wrestling at times, but he doesn't rely on it too much. He goes for takedowns as they present themselves and doesn't really force wrestling exchanges if they aren't there. He's never had one of his takedowns stopped in the UFC, so when he has attempted them, they've landed. His timing on his shots is impeccable and he often catches his opponents over extending or off balance and then uses his power to finish the takedown. Once on the ground, Aspinall isn't looking to just lay and pray. When on top, he can finish the fight both with his strikes or with a submission. Heavyweights with legitimately good BJJ don't come around too often, at least at the highest level, and that is sort of a skillset that is missing at the top of the UFC right now. That makes Aspinall unique as his opponents will have to prepare for submission attempts that they aren't very likely to see from anyone else right now. On the feet, Aspinall is a pretty good striker and I think he should have a slight advantage there in this one. His speed makes him extremely tough to deal with as most heavyweights just can't keep up with him. He can enter the pocket and fire off a combination before his opponent can really react. We saw in his last fight against Volkov that Volkov really struggled to touch him. Tom would come into range to land his combination, but by the time Volkov was ready to throw his strikes back, Aspinall as already out of range. He's more of boxer than a traditional Muay Thai type of striker right now, but he does mix in kicks here and there. If he can add a more diverse set of kicks and strikes to his game, then that may be the next step in his evolution towards a potential championship. There are no clear weaknesses in Aspinall's game, rather questions about what we haven't seen. The expectation is that we get answers to at least some of those questions with this matchup. The biggest question for me is Aspinall's cardio. The only two times Aspinall has been past the midway point of the second round, he lost. This is now going to be a potential five round fight against a heavyweight that we know can fight for a full 25 minutes. Even if Aspinall is winning for the first 7 minutes of this fight, if he can't maintain a decent pace, Blaydes is going to grind him down. Aspinall fights with an insane pace early on, which if he can maintain that then he's essentially the champion in waiting. However, it is much more likely that he slows down to some degree, the key will be how much does he slow down and does he gas out entirely. I think Aspinall is too good of an athlete to see a Herbert Burns type of cardio dump, but if he gets too tired, you know Blaydes is going to take him down and beat him up over and over again. Not knowing how long Aspinall will be the version of himself that we know makes this fight very difficult to figure out. If Aspinall has good cardio and can maintain all of his skills the entire fight, that will probably give us a really competitive fight. If Aspinall is basically done after 2 rounds, that is a much different situation. The other unknown is the extent of Aspinall's grappling. We know he is a good grappler, but how good exactly will be pretty important in this one because Curtis Blaydes is an elite heavyweight wrestler. I would be stunned if Aspinall is a better wrestler, but if he is equal to Blaydes, then that is a huge development. I don't expect we'll see Aspinall wrestling offensively too much, but if he can mostly stuff the takedowns, that will go a long way towards him getting the win. The final question in terms of the grappling is what is Aspinall like off of his back? We know Aspinall has good BJJ, so I would suspect that he is at least competent off of his back, but again, we just haven't seen him in those spots. There's also a difference between fighting off of your back and fighting off of your back against Curtis Blaydes, but we'll get to that. Obviously, fighting off of your back and fishing for triangles or sweeps isn't ideal in MMA and it would be more important for Aspinall to have the ability to get back to his feet. Again, I have to imagine that he is competent in these areas given that we've seen him look comfortable on the ground, but it just isn't something we've seen him do. He could do it perfectly or he could give his back to get up and end up being controlled badly after that. There's really no way to know for sure until we see it. The final question that I think is being overlooked is how Aspinall looks when he's facing resistance or adversity. We know Aspinall is a very good hammer and when he gets the fight snowballing in his favor, the finish isn't usually too far away. However, we've never seen how he reacts to having someone else put him where they want him. I think we need to see how he looks when he's down 2 rounds to none or when he gets cracked right on the chin. I am not predicting that Tom Aspinall would just fold at the first sign of some push back, but some fighters don't do well under adverse circumstances. They have a hard time flipping the momentum once their opponent gets things rolling in their favor. Again, I'm not saying that Aspinall has all of these weaknesses, but we can't assume he doesn't have them either. Even if he is weak in some of those areas, his strengths are plenty good enough to see him win this fight.
Curtis Blaydes comes into this fight in the red corner, but as of this writing, he is a slight underdog. He is much more of a UFC veteran and a finished product at this stage of his career. While every fighter can continue to improve, I think Blaydes is largely who he is and we aren't likely to see major alterations in his skill set or strategy for the most part. He is 31 years old and has been fighting professionally since 2014, while accumulating a career record of 16-3, with 1 no contest. Of his 20 career fights, 15 have come inside the UFC and he has had a ton of success in that time. His only losses have come to Francis Ngannou (twice) and Derrick Lewis. Unfortunately for Blaydes, his losses have come at really bad times for him as he has seemingly been right on the cusp of a title shot for years now. What is equally, if not more, unfortunate for Blaydes is how his losses have gone down. All 3 of have come via knockout, with the last to Lewis being especially worrisome. It was one of those knockouts where it pulls even the most hardcore fans out of the moment and has everyone immediately concerned for his well being. It seems as though Blaydes is fully recovered and is taking shots as he normally has, but knockouts like that are enough to change someone. After that loss to Lewis in early 2021, Blaydes smartly took an extended time away from competition. He would return 7 months later and picked up a nice win over Jairzinho Rozenstruik. His first fight of 2022 saw him knock out Chris Daukaus in one of the first Fight Night's in front of a crowd since the pandemic and has put Blaydes back on a two fight winning streak. He is looking to ride that momentum to what would be his biggest win in a little while. Stylistically, Blaydes profiles as a wrestler, but has done a nice job rounding out his game over the years. Don't get it twisted though, Blaydes will likely win or lose this fight based on his ability to get takedowns and control Aspinall. Blaydes is likely the best wrestler in the division and has the ability to hold his opponents down with the best of them. When he feels comfortable, his ground and pound can be vicious, but sometimes he has a hard time letting his strikes go. That strikes me as being a bit odd because on the feet, Blaydes doesn't really have a volume problem. He doesn't throw great volume, but it is around average for a heavyweight I would say. His striking as improved so much since we first saw him that he is now at the point where he can stand and strike with most heavyweights and come out on top. He is extremely powerful, but sometimes his strikes get a bit sloppy. He isn't the most technical all the time, but he is still effective. Blaydes does a pretty good job of limiting the damage that he takes and that comes mostly from having so much top control time. On the feet, he doesn't get hit a lot, but it seems like he does get hit pretty hard when his opponents do connect. Obviously it is heavyweight so no one his hitting lightly, but it seems like Blaydes always has one really interesting moment where he gets cracked before he takes over. If there was a weakness in Blaydes game, I think it would be that he sometimes lacks a sense of urgency. He doesn't always seem to be completely into the idea of stopping the fight and is sometimes content to just kind of ride out a decision. With someone who gets top control as easily and frequently as he does, I feel like he should be able to get more late finishes after he has his opponent tired out, but it feels like he just holds back sometimes in that regard. Grinding out decisions isn't inherently awful, but fighting at heavyweight and especially against the caliber of opponents that he is consistently facing, finishes are very possible. I think it would behoove Blaydes to be more active in looking to finish fights earlier as those finishes would expose him to less damage overall. Having to constantly grind out 5 rounds, even when he is winning at a high rate exposes him to the possibility of being finished, where if he could deliver that heavy ground and pound that he has at times, he could stop fights in the third or fourth rounds and minimize that risk. I have said for awhile now that I wish Blaydes had developed more of a submission game for the same reason. He is such a high level wrestler and his knowledge and ability to get to dominant positions is so advanced that he should be submitted or finishing his opponents much more easily, but that just isn't in his game. He is more content to just maintain position and tire his opponents out. The final thing to talk about with Blaydes is his durability, which some people like to say is a question mark. Some on MMA twitter will try to tell you that Blaydes is chinny, which is just not true. The guy was doctor stopped against Ngannou, TKO'd by him a second time (arguably the stoppage came a tad quick), and then knocked out badly by Lewis. While the Lewis one was ugly, being knocked out by those two guys doesn't mean someone has a weak chin. They are two of the most powerful fighters in the history of heavyweight MMA. If you want to say that Blaydes may be changed after the Lewis knockout, that is your right to do so, but he took a flying knee in the Rozenstruik fight and seemed just fine. That isn't to say Aspinall couldn't knock him out because he obviously can, but I don't think it will be due to any problems with Blaydes' chin if it does happen.
I think instead of doing the "keys to victory" I like it more when I talk about what each fighter needs to do offensively and then do defensively instead of listing out keys and going from one unrelated idea to another. I think this fight is sort of a similar set up to the RDA vs Rafael Fiziev fight from a couple of weeks ago. For Aspinall, he will be at his most effective early on and needs to allow his athletic advantages to be on display. Despite his wrestling background, the clearest path to victory for Aspinall is to keep this fight at range. He will be the faster fighter here and he needs to use it. He can close the distance to land his strikes and then move back out before Blaydes can land anything back. He should be fast enough to do it, but he has to walk a fine line with the distance management. He obviously has to be close enough to land, but if he gets too close, Blaydes will either clinch or shoot for the takedown. If he has most of this fight being a distance based kickboxing match, then he will likely be winning this fight. Defensively, he has to be prepared to deal with the wrestling of Curtis Blaydes one way or another. He has to stuff at least some shots. He can't rely only on his ability to get up or fight off of his back. If he is going to be content to fight off of his back, he's just going to get controlled for the entire fight. Guys inside the top 5 aren't getting submitted from the guard in MMA anymore and Blaydes has as much experience there as anyone. If Aspinall's plan is to get a triangle or arm bar then I think he is making a huge mistake. If Aspinall's plan is to just work back up every time, then I think he is going to gas out. Blaydes has pretty good cardio for a heavyweight and can get as many takedowns as he needs to. Aspinall has to stop some of those takedowns because I don't think he has the cardio to get up potentially 15+ times. He can get up sometimes, but he really needs to prevent himself from ever getting to those positions. Maintaining distance and forcing Blaydes to shoot from farther away is easier said than done, but that will be the first way to stop the takedowns. I think it will be important for him to show an uppercut in the early going as well. If he can show a willingness or even land an uppercut early, that may deter Blaydes from shooting or at least make him shoot less often. Aspinall needs to maintain his athleticism as deep into the fight as he can and avoiding the takedown attempts altogether is probably the best way to do so. If we're sticking with the RDA vs Fiziev comparison, then that makes Blaydes RDA. In the early going, I think Blaydes needs to play the long game. He doesn't necessarily need to win the fight early, but he needs to not lose it. The most important thing for Blaydes both offensively and defensively will be to close the distance. Having the fight take place at range is a disadvantage for him. Aspinall is the better striker and he's a lot faster. He will be able to land and get out of the pocket before Blaydes can hit him back. Blaydes needs to close the distance and get his hands on Aspinall as early as he can. Even if he's not getting his takedowns early, forcing Aspinall to work along the cage, defend, and dig under hooks will wear him down and test his cardio. Obviously, it will be better if he can actually get the fight down, but even if he can't, making Aspinall work hard in the early going will be important. Blaydes will be able to compete on the feet, but I think Aspinall's speed will have him a step behind early on. As the fight progresses, Blaydes is going to eventually need some takedowns I would imagine. Blaydes has become a good striker, but I don't think he can just out strike Aspinall over 25 minutes. The last thing I want to talk about is that I hope Curtis Blaydes is only focused on getting the win. He seemed to think in his last fight that he needs to stand and bang in order for fans to like him. While there may be some truth to that, I think that puts him in a dangerous place in this fight. I hope that he is simply focused on winning the fight and not putting too much focus on how or where he wins. Overall, I don't really think this fight is going to be close. I get the feeling that either Aspinall will stop the takedowns and he's going to handle Blaydes on the feet or that Blaydes is going to ground Aspinall over and over again. It would sort of surprise me if we saw a lot of back and forth where Aspinall would win part of the round standing and then Blaydes gets a takedown and wins the other part of the round. The other concern for Aspinall is that he stops the takedown, but then gets pinned against the cage for the entire fight. Even if he stays on his feet, he has to actually get his own offense off as well. For me, I think the biggest key in this entire fight will be Aspinall's cardio. I think he is skilled enough to compete with Blaydes everywhere early and his speed should give him an advantage at range. If he can maintain that for the entire fight, then he probably wins, but if he slows or gasses out, that is going to be when things get dangerous for him. If he does slow down, how badly does he slow and how long into the fight does it happen? Can he go at 80% output for 4 rounds or is he down to 50% output after 2? That is kind of where I think the fight will be won and lost on Saturday.
What do you guys think? What predictions do you have for the fight? What are your keys for both men? Leave any and all thoughts below. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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