The UFC is passing the torch to the next generation of heavyweights. Tom Aspinall will take on Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 295 for the interim light heavyweight title. With Jon Jones having indicated he might retire after his next fight and Stipe Miocic turning 41 this year, it makes sense for the UFC to do so. The interim bout has been made on short notice. The Jones-Miocic bout was originally supposed to headline UFC 295, but it was canceled after Jones got injured in training.

Pavlovich was the backup fighter for Jones-Miocic and therefore was training anyway. However, what puzzled many was why Aspinall would take the bout on two weeks’ notice against the scariest fighter in all of the UFC. Pavlovich is a veritable knockout artist who has won his last seven fights via first-round KO, owing to his nightmarish power. So, in a recent interview, Aspinall answered this question in detail.

Tom Aspinall on why he took Pavlovich fight on short notice

Aspinall went on the Shak MMA YouTube channel yesterday to talk about the UFC 295 Pavlovich fight. When asked why he took the fight on short notice, he wasn’t sure at first. However, the Englishman then credited his decision to the recent change in his training regimen.

“To be honest, I don’t know. I think that I changed my training situation. You see, before I never used to train with any heavyweights at all or I did once every blue moon. And now I’m on the map, training with heavy weights like every single day and I think that just gives me so much confidence to where I’m at and what my body can do and what I can do,” Aspinall said.

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Aspinall said that he didn’t train with heavyweights, except on a few occasions, prior to his knee injury. However, now that he trains with other heavyweights regularly, he is more confident and believes he can take on Pavlovich.

“Like, I don’t know, it’s just like there wasn’t really much thought there. I was just like ‘yep I’ve been training good. Let’s throw me in. I’ll be all right on two weeks’ notice,'” he added. His upcoming bout takes on added significance as Aspinall himself thinks this undisputed title will become the undisputed title without a unification fight in the future, as he revealed later in the interview.

Aspinall thinks interim title winner will not have a chance to unify

The Jones-Miocic bout will go ahead pending ‘Bones’ recovery. The legacy-defining fight between the man considered the MMA GOAT and the man considered the heavyweight GOAT will happen sometime next year. Aspinall was given two scenarios after the Jones-Miocic fight and asked which he felt was most likely.

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The first was that the interim title winner gets promoted to undisputed, and the second was that he fights the winner of the battle of the GOATs. Aspinall felt that the former was more likely, which means the interim champion would not get to fight the winner of Jones-Miocic. Which would be an absolute shame.

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