Tom Aspinall admits knee injury made him want to “quit” MMA: “I didn’t want to carry on”

Tom Aspinall admits he wanted to quit MMA after he tore his ACL during his UFC London main event against Curtis Blaydes.

Aspinall was set for his second UFC headliner spot back in July of 2022 when he took on Blaydes. It was a pivotal fight as had the Brit won he likely would have gotten a title shot. However, just 15 seconds into the fight, Aspinall blew his knee out and needed to be stretched out of the Octagon.

It was a devastating result and after the injury and losing for the first time in the UFC like that, Tom Aspinall admitted there were moments during the recovery he thought about quitting MMA.

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“Depressing, horrendous, absolutely horrendous. Again, made me want to quit the sport for a little while. For a couple of days, I didn’t want to carry on. I fell out with everything and everyone for a little,” Aspinall said to Full Circle on Bet365. “It’s just not very nice mate, it’s just horrendous, lay on the floor on your back in front of 22,000 of your own fans with a knee that is numb, locked up, being unable to move it, and knowing that, well I was supposed to go away. I was supposed to go see family in Poland for like a month, I was going to do a little tour of Poland, see family and friends and everything. Misses and the kids were already out there, had to cancel that. Had to go down to London, get surgery, and recover for a year. It was not ideal.”

According to Tom Aspinall, once he got past the depressing state of the injury, he made it clear he would be returning and was confident he would have success.

In his return fight, Aspinall scored a first-round TKO over Marcin Tybura. He’s now set to serve as the co-main event of UFC 295 against Sergei Pavlovich for the interim heavyweight title.