UFC London: A year later, a 'way, way better' Tom Aspinall is set to pick up where he left off

In 2017, Tom Aspinall was a promising young heavyweight who was beginning to look as if he had what it took to be a star in the UFC. He was athletic, he was well-rounded and he had a good fight IQ.

But he injured his meniscus that year and underwent surgery, though the knee didn't heal properly. It was the start of a journey that pushed him into the UFC's top five heavyweights but also led him to last just 15 seconds in the biggest fight of his career. He faced veteran Curtis Blaydes at the O2 Arena in London, England, on July 23, 2022, with the very real possibility of fighting for the heavyweight title in the next few months with a win.

The bout with Blaydes was set up as a showcase for Aspinall, who is from nearby Manchester, England and had created a bond with the passionate British fans. Things were going according to plan on fight night. Every time a video of Aspinall was shown on the arena's video boards — entering the building, getting his hands wrapped, warming up — the crowd went berserk, showing its support.

After all the pre-fight hoopla ended, the bell sounded and Aspinall moved to the center of the octagon to show what he could do. He threw a right kick at Blaydes and instantly collapsed in a heap, grabbing his right knee and shrieking in pain.

That failed surgery came back to haunt him. He tore the meniscus again, as well as the medial collateral ligament (MCL) and suffered damage to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

The obvious question is why Aspinall didn't have another surgery to make certain his knee was healed, but there were a lot of things going on in his life, and he chose to wait.

For a while, it looked like the right decision. Aspinall fought two fights in Cage Warriors, and then five in the UFC, winning all seven with the injured meniscus. That earned him the bout with Blaydes and put him on the fast track to a title fight.

In hindsight, the answer might still have been to repair the meniscus before fighting again, but the struggles of MMA fighters to make a living, particularly on the regional level, put him in a bind.

Aspinall, who returns to competition Saturday when he takes on Marcin Tybura at the O2 in London, has mixed feelings when he thinks of whether he should have had the surgery.

"When I first got in the UFC, you have to bear in mind that I had twin babies and I had a 2-year-old as well, and I had absolutely no money at all. Zero," Aspinall said. "It was basically do or die. One leg or not, I had to do it. When I won the first one [against Jake Collier] pretty easily, they offered me one more and I just thought, 'Yeah, we'll do one more. No problem.' So they offered me another one and I did that, was fine, then they offered me [Andrei] Arlovski in Vegas. I had never been to Vegas before. I was a massive Arlovski fan, so I wanted to do that. And that just kept the ball rolling, to be honest.

"They were offering me more money, bigger contracts, stuff like that, and the whole thing just got a little bit out of hand, to be honest with you. Before I knew it, I was like six, seven fights in, I was doing really well and I didn't know when the right time to do the surgery was, to be honest."

He had the surgery to repair all of the damage he suffered against Blaydes and said he's fully healthy and, most importantly, completely confident in his knee. He's added 10 pounds or so of muscle, which is noticeable in his chest, shoulders and neck area.

His team took his rehabilitation slowly and didn't allow him to rush anything. He acquiesced, unlike a lot of fighters who are so eager to return that they rush back and re-injure themselves. Once he was fully back into it, he realized how much he loved what he does for a living.

"It's been a long, long year that I've been away from this thing and I absolutely love this sport," Aspinall said. "I'd seriously forgotten how much I loved it until the fight week came around and training camp came around."

His smart rehabilitation has changed him for the better, he said. He grinned as he said, "I'm a way, way different version of myself than I was then," comparing his overall game before Blaydes to where he believes his game is now, heading into the Tybura fight. "I'm absolutely, completely different now than I was then. Way better. Way, way better."

He'll get the chance to show that against Tybura, and begin the hype train all over again.