The Score Unsettled: Why Tom Aspinall Just Can't Let the Curtis Blaydes Rematch Go

You know, in the world of professional fighting, some losses just stick. They fester, honestly, long after the bright lights fade and the crowds disperse. And for Tom Aspinall, the current interim UFC Heavyweight Champion, there’s one particular blemish that still gnaws at him: that frustrating, blink-and-you-miss-it encounter with Curtis Blaydes back in July of 2022. It wasn't a loss in the traditional sense, not really, but more a cruel twist of fate that left everyone, Aspinall included, feeling utterly robbed of a true contest.

Think about it for a moment: fifteen seconds. That’s all it took for Aspinall's knee to buckle, for the fight to be waved off, and for a highly anticipated clash between two top heavyweights to vanish into thin air. It was a brutal, anticlimactic moment, one that, you could say, still haunts Aspinall’s competitive spirit. And now, despite holding an impressive gold strap, despite being poised for potentially massive unification bouts, Aspinall is making his case, quite passionately actually, to run it back with Blaydes. He wants, no, he needs to settle that particular piece of unfinished business.

It’s an interesting stance, isn’t it? When you're the interim champ, typically, the next step is a grand unification bout against the undisputed king. For Aspinall, that would mean Jon Jones, or perhaps even the legend Stipe Miocic, depending on how that elusive super-fight eventually plays out. But Aspinall’s priorities seem rooted in something more personal, a desire for definitive proof, a need to erase the memory of that compromised fight. He hasn’t truly faced Blaydes, not in a way that truly tested either man. And that, frankly, bugs him.

He sees Blaydes as a legitimate threat, a formidable opponent who deserves a proper dance, and perhaps more importantly, an opponent Aspinall himself deserves to truly beat. This isn't about avoiding a bigger fight; far from it. It's about a fighter’s integrity, about facing a challenge head-on that was unfairly cut short. It’s a human reaction, an athlete’s stubborn refusal to leave a question mark hanging over his record, especially when he feels he wasn’t given a fair shake.

So, as the heavyweight division continues its rather convoluted dance around Jones and Miocic, Tom Aspinall is simply, yet powerfully, stating his case. He’s ready to prove he’s the better man, and to do that, he believes he first has to go back to where things went sideways. A rematch with Curtis Blaydes isn't just another fight on his resume; it’s a mission to reclaim what was lost, to definitively close a chapter that never truly began. And honestly, who can blame him for wanting to finally write that ending?