UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall gave his view on who would win in a fight between a high-level MMA fighter and an SAS soldier.
At the very top of UFC with 15 MMA wins and 12 knockouts from 18 fighters, 6ft 5, 250lb Aspinall is well contention for being one of the baddest humans on the planet.
He has trained in martial arts since the age of seven and became UFC's heavyweight king in June when Dana White confirmed Jon Jones had retired from the sport and therefore relinquished the belt.
During an appearance on Logan Paul's IMPAULSIVE podcast some months ago, the 32-year-old was told by the WWE superstar that he would go toe-to-toe with any man in the world and would win.
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When co-host Mike Majlak brought up specially-trained military experts who are "trained to kill" and "render you lifeless", Aspinall weighed in with his take - explaining how he things proceedings would play out if weapons were banned but there were otherwise no rules.
"I completely agree but I do have a counter argument," Aspinall stated.
"We are trained to hurt each other. That's part of the sport. They are trained to kill, they are trained to poke eyes and knee in the groin - do all the stuff that we can't do by rules.
"When the rules are taken away, who's to say we can't headbutt them, poke them in the eye and knee them in the balls. If we're not talking no weapons, you could get any MMA fighter and put him an SAS special whatever and they had no weapons, I'm pretty sure nine times out of ten the MMA guy will come out on top."
He added: "I would like to think so. I don't know if that's true. I don't walk in a room and do an eye test, like, 'I can take all of you' - my mind just doesn't work that way. That's why I said, 'Define the baddest man' because if there's weapons involved I've got no chance - I don't know what I'm doing."
What happened when MMA fighter fought trained special forces members?
Paul mentioned that another MMA fighter who became a champion in Sean Strickland, trained and fought against an ex Navy SEAL who he "beat the living s*** out of".
But closer to Aspinall, his fellow British UFC phenomenon Paddy Pimblett fought 10 marines in a row at Camp Pendleton over in San Diego back in 2022.
'The Baddy' proceed to submit every single one of the United States Marines Corps (USMC) without any rest in a gauntlet-style set-up where he demonstrated a slew of submission techniques.
The video was posted on Pimblett's YouTube channel and swiftly went viral with 14 million views.
"I have the balance of a ballerina lad and weigh like a f**king sumo wrestler," Pimblett told the soldiers afterwards.
"You know what I mean, I’m a weirdo lad, proper weirdo.
"F**king hell lad yous have made me do a big crazy circuit then I’ve f**king rolled every one of yous. What the f**k boys? Meant to be doing a three-mile run today, it’s not happening now. Lad, this has been one of my hardest workouts this week, you gang of big b**tards."
Topics: Tom Aspinall, UFC, MMA
Josh Lawless