Tom Aspinall has seen it all in the heavyweight division. The British powerhouse has been climbing the UFC ladder for years, watching fighters come and go while perfecting his own craft. He’s faced grapplers who want to squeeze the life out of him and strikers who throw bombs. But when you’ve been around the fight game as long as Aspinall has, you start appreciating the weird stuff more than the textbook techniques.<\/p>
The newly crowned heavyweight champion knows what makes a fighter special isn’t always the perfect form or flawless execution. Sometimes it’s the guys who throw the rulebook out the window and create their own chaos that catch attention. Aspinall recently got elevated to full champion status after Jon Jones decided to hang up his gloves earlier than expected. Now he’s preparing for his title defense against Ciryl Gane in Abu Dhabi, but he still finds time to geek out over other fighters who bring something completely different to the table.<\/p>
When Aspinall talked about his favorite fighter to watch, he didn’t pick someone from his own division or even someone with a similar style. Instead, he went straight to middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis, and his reasoning is absolutely perfect. The South African fighter has been driving MMA <\/a>analysts crazy since he started his championship run, and Aspinall loves every confusing minute of it.<\/p> Speaking on his YouTube channel while talking to Paddy Pimblett, Aspinall broke down exactly why Du Plessis fascinated him so much. The heavyweight champ admitted that he watched Du Plessis fight and felts completely lost trying to figure out what’s happening. Du Plessis will throw a head kick and immediately shoot for a takedown in ways that make no sense on paper but somehow work perfectly in practice. It’s like watching someone play chess by their own rules and still winning every game.<\/p> “I love his style, I think he is the most interesting guy to watch in the UFC. Because I watch him and he doesn’t make sense for me, I can’t see what he is doing, he’ll do like a head kick into a low single, and I’m like ‘What’!”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>