Tom Aspinall’s journey: from local hero to UFC’s rising thunder

met that mad lad 2016 down the local pro-am in wigan bless 'im, still got me mates taking bets how many seconds till his next tapout 😂 then saw him smash out of that dim shithole like it was nothing

ever felt that one moment when you just *knew* a lad had something extra? like standing behind a shop door at 2am on a tuesday and watching the rain bounce off the pavement, thinking yeah this kid’s gonna hit hard and proper one day — i still get the shivers thinking about that first ammy day at the gym inigan when he’d just turned eighteen and was sparring with these pros who looked like they’d just stepped out of some wigan alley brawl, straight tough blokes who wouldn’t blink at a broken nose. he came off the canvas twice that day and just kept grinning — and the coaches, dead serious types who’d seen decades, were already whispering to each other like it was sorted. now every time i see that london flash i still picture that wet tuesday morning and the quiet grin — yeah, that’s the kind of mad who don’t break.

you remember how it felt watching him then — some scrawny lad with a mouth guard too big for his face, walking into those battles like it was just another Tuesday? compare that to the man who walked out at UFC London last year and turned 17 seconds of history into everyone’s new ringtone. you could still see the old fire in his eyes, sure, but the hands had grown into hammers and the chin had learned to hold its own against thunder. it wasn’t just that he remembered how to hurt people; it was that the world finally understood why Wigan had always believed in one mad bastard who’d sooner walk home barefoot than miss a session. we knew him when he was still collecting bus fares instead of knockouts; now we’re left wondering how many more will pay for the lesson.

remember when we were all stood around that old gym inigan late one night, after some local show where tom had just absolutely wrecked some bloke twice his size, and someone said "well he’s a one trick pony" right to his face? he just smirked, said "nah mate, just haven’t found the trick yet" and cracked on like it was the most normal thing. now every time that london flash pops up on my phone i still hear his voice saying that, except now instead of one trick he’s got about seven.

that fat wednesday night when tom nearly choked on a kebab after sparring with those pro lads and still rocked up to bag the same lad in 54 seconds flat — took us two weeks to find the phone cos he’d laughed so hard he drop-kicked it through the kebab shop window 🤣🍿