{"id":10657,"date":"2025-06-24T12:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T12:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/10657\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T12:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T12:05:07","slug":"tom-aspinalls-potential-first-challenger-outlines-how-he-will-beat-the-new-ufc-heavyweight-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/10657\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Aspinall’s potential first challenger outlines how he will beat the new UFC heavyweight champion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new era is underway in the UFC heavyweight division, and the top contenders are now in pursuit of Tom Aspinall\u2019s crown.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aspinall<\/a> had his interim champion status converted to undisputed this past Saturday when Dana White announced that Jon Jones had retired<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The news ended much speculation and debate over the division\u2019s title picture, which had featured two champions for 19 months owing to Jones\u2019 refusal to fight Aspinall<\/a> and unify the gold.<\/p>\n

With that, the weight class can move on, and one contender is leading the charge with their callouts of Aspinall<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jailton Almeida plans to drag Tom Aspinall to deep waters<\/p>\n

Not many have immediately leaped forward to claim the first shot at the newly crowned heavyweight<\/a> king. That, however, cannot be said for Jailton Almeida<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Brazilian quickly went to work on social media, replying to a number of prominent accounts laying out why he should be first in line for a crack at Aspinall.<\/p>\n

And that trend continued in a recent interview with MMA Fighting<\/a>, during which Almeida even broke down how he would make Aspinall\u2019s undisputed reign a short one.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a great fight because our styles are similar. He\u2019s fast. Not surprisingly he\u2019s the champion,\u201d Almeida said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve seen from Tom Aspinall is that he doesn\u2019t fight five rounds. He\u2019s never fought five rounds in his life. He gets tired after the second. Tom Aspinall was never tested to fight more than three rounds. I\u2019m doing six, seven rounds in the gym already, and I\u2019m not even training to fight yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I fight Tom Aspinall, I\u2019ll take him to the third round to see how he does. But Aspinall is no fool, he\u2019s very experienced and has fought tough opponents, so I have to be smart and come up with a good strategy to beat him. To me, when the cage closes there, it\u2019s a war. I\u2019m ready for a war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Malhadinho\u2019 has been desperate for an opportunity at winning UFC gold this year. To prove it, Almeida even called out Magomed Ankalaev<\/a>, the light heavyweight champion.<\/p>\n

\"UFCPhoto by Jeff Bottari\/Zuffa LLC via Getty ImagesTom Aspinall sets his goal as undisputed UFC heavyweight champion<\/p>\n

While Almeida intends to usurp him if given the chance, Aspinall is planning for a long dominion over the heavyweight division.<\/p>\n

In a short video posted to his YouTube channel, the undisputed titleholder reacted to Jones\u2019 retirement. After thanking his supporters, Aspinall vowed to be the \u201cbest heavyweight ever\u201d<\/a> while building his legacy on the throne.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoving forward, very, very important to me that I acknowledge everybody quickly who has supported me in this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to say it was a tough time, but a bit of a challenging time over the last 10, 11 months, that I have been inactive due to no fault of my own.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut luckily, that is all behind us now. Massively appreciate the support from everybody, massively appreciate the support going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m gonna keep this thing as active as possible. I wanna be the best heavyweight ever to walk the face of the earth,\u201d Aspinall added. \u201cI\u2019m gonna defend this thing as many times as I possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Whether or not Aspinall\u2019s journey to that begins against Almeida or another contender, though, remains to be seen.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new era is underway in the UFC heavyweight division, and the top contenders are now in pursuit…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[11524,11525,62,5193,552,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-10657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-heavyweight","9":"tag-jailton-almeida","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tom-aspinall","12":"tag-ufc","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}