The only man to have recorded a legitimate win over UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall has previously opened up on the most notable victory of his MMA career to date.
Stuart Austin, who describes himself as "the man who beat the man", was deemed the underdog coming into his heavyweight bout against an up-and-coming Aspinall at BAMMA 21 on June 13, 2015.
The London-born fighter needed a win to reignite his career after successive defeats. In fact, he was on the verge of leaving the sport for good until that evening at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham.
“So, I was on a two-fight losing streak, and there’s this young, big, strong up-and-coming kid who nobody wanted to fight," Austin told SPORF in 2024.
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"I was told that a lot of people turned him down, and in my head at the time, I was just like, if I lose three in a row, if I can’t beat some up-and-coming kid, then he’s the guy, and I’m not. So, I went into it a bit gung-ho. It was do or die."
To the surprise of many, Austin secured a huge win that night after forcing Aspinall to tap with a heel-hook submission in round two.
“If you watch the fight, it’s interesting; you can see his striking is better than mine; he was aggressive. But I was able to out-wrestle him and win the grappling exchanges," he said.
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"A lot of people have seen the finish but not the actual fight. What you don’t see is that I’ve been ground and pounded and ended up standing up over him. I try to do a Superman punch through his guard from standing to ground, and halfway through, he goes to up-kick me, and I panic and go, ‘Oh f***’.
“We end up in the weirdest scramble I’ve ever been in. I had this giant gorilla on top of me, clubbing me in the side of the head. I pulled guard, which is a big ‘no, no’ — it’s such a bad idea. But I managed to get the leg lock.
"It was a huge win, and he’s springboarded from there. He’s looking amazing right now; even Jon Jones doesn’t want to fight him.”
Tom Aspinall has also reflected on that fight. Shortly after becoming the UFC interim heavyweight champion in 2024 following a win over Sergei Pavlovich, Aspinall gave an honest assessment of the defeat to Austin.
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“I just had no experience back then after two or three fights in,” he told Nordic Bet. “I didn’t know how to control my emotions properly or my energy properly and I didn’t know what to do if the fight wasn’t over in one round.
“Fighting is a massive emotional rollercoaster, and I didn’t know how to control that," he added. "I wasn’t very good in those days, it’s as simple as that, my skills weren’t up to scratch. I have learned a ridiculous amount since then."
As we all know, Aspinall has gone on to become the UFC heavyweight champion and will face Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 on Saturday, while Austin continues to impress in Levels Fight League, an MMA promotion based in the Netherlands.
Topics: UFC, MMA, Tom Aspinall
Jack Kenmare