Tom Aspinall vs Curtis Blaydes 2 Preview & Picks
Tom Aspinall is backed to retain his interim heavyweight title.
Aspinall lost to Curtis Blaydes in 2022, but that was down to an injury he sustained early on.
He has rebounded in emphatic fashion and has the knockout power to take out Blaydes early.
- Tom Aspinall has won 10 of his last 11 fights
- 11 of Tom Aspinall’s 14 career wins have been via KO/TKO
- All 7 of Aspinall’s wins in the UFC have been via stoppage
- 6 of Tom Aspinall’s 7 UFC wins have ended in the first round
- All 4 of Curtis Blaydes’ 4 career defeats have been by KO/TKO
Head To Head
- Curtis Blaydes won by TKO in round 1 when the two men last met in July 2022
Tom Aspinall Form
Tom Aspinall is the interim UFC heavyweight champion with a career record of 14-3 (11 KOs, 3 Subs).
Aspinall debuted in the UFC in July 2020 after compiling a 7-2 record fighting on the domestic scene in the UK.
He marked his UFC debut with a 45-second knockout of Jake Collier, and backed that up by stopping Alan Baudot with strikes in 95 seconds.
The Englishman was taken to the second round in his next fight, but he kept his winning run going by tapping out former heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski.
Aspinall then knocked out Serghei Spivac in two-and-a-half minutes before submitting Alexander Volkov, with both of those wins earning him ‘Performance of the Night’ offers.
The 31-year-old’s streak in the UFC was ended in July 2022, but that TKO loss came after he suffered a serious injury in the first 15 seconds of his fight with Curtis Blaydes and could not continue.
Aspinall returned to action one year later, and he has wasted no time in getting back to winning ways.
He knocked out Marcin Tybura in 73 seconds last July, and then in November he stopped Sergei Pavlovich inside 69 seconds to claim the interim heavyweight crown.
Curtis Blaydes Form
Curtis Blaydes is the #4 ranked heavyweight contender with a career record of 18-4 (13 KOs, 5 Subs) and 1 No Contest.
Blaydes debuted in the UFC back in April 2016 and tasted defeat in his first fight, as he was stopped by Francis Ngannou.
He rebounded with a six-fight unbeaten run that included wins over Mark Hunt and Alistair Overeem, only to see it end with a 45-second knockout loss to Ngannou in their rematch.
‘Razor’ responded to that setback with run of four consecutive victories that included a second-round knockout loss to former champion Junior Dos Santos.
But just as Blaydes was again building momentum, it was brought to a shuddering halt as he was knocked out by Derrick Lewis in the second round.
The 33-year-old American responded with a decision win over Jairzinho Rozenstruik, and then knocked out Chris Daukaus in his first round.
He was gifted a first-round TKO win over Tom Aspinall when his opponent suffered a serious injury in the opening seconds, but he had no such good fortune in his next outing.
Blaydes was knocked out in the first round by Sergei Pavlovich in his only outing of 2023, only to rebound in his first fight of 2024 as he took out Jailton Almeida in the second round.