YouSaid · the spoken record

Tom Aspinall

lines on the record: 173
first: 2025-06-26
most recent: 2025-06-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“eliminate one thing for the next day and write how you feel. That's what I did a lot is like, and now I'm at the point where I'll eat similar things at similar times every day because I know how my body functions on that and I know that if I'm doing an intense session there and need a little bit more calves before and after and what kind of carbs is something that I've worked out to how I feel before and after. Again, it's just a lot of every person's body is different so I would never like to sit here and I'm not a nutrition expert and start going on about what people need to eat because that's not my expertise. But I know from a personal point of view that writing things down and experimenting, taking this out and adding this in and then writing notes on how you feel and doing that every day has been massive for me.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Course, of course. That's kind of what I'm getting to is like it is so important what you put in your body. Like, I didn't realize that until I was maybe 28 years old, 27, 28 years old. And it needs to be monitored. Again, going back to writing stuff down, write down what you eat in a day.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What I'm aiming to do. So, however the recovery looks to you, whether that's stretching, breathing exercises, sauna, swimming, steamroom, jacuzzi. You know, there's a whole Google recovery from exercise. There'll be a million things that you can do. But I like to try and do 50% of my training. The easiest way I can say is if I'm training four hours, I try and do two hours worth of recovery. And I think that has helped me a lot, not to mention massively, massively underrated. And as a heavyweight, I can kind of eat what I want, really, if I want to. Really? Well, I don't have the smaller weights, they all have to be under a certain weight. So weight cutting is like a big thing in MMA. People, they do extreme diets and then cut a lot of water out the last week and try and get, you know, squeeze as much as they can to get under this weight division. They weigh in, then they put the weight back on.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, something that I'm learning as I'm getting a little bit older, and I'm not saying I'm old by any chance, by any stretch of the imagination, but as I'm getting older and I'm getting more, I've been training a long time, even though I'm not up there in age, but I can definitely feel more on my body than I used to, especially being a bigger guy, generally we carry more injuries, but I think that if you train in, for example, four hours a day. I found it doing at least half of that time recovering.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do bits on my YouTube channel and stuff about me explaining techniques and doing different things. And now I've got something called a school platform, which I know you had Alex Hormozy on the channel as well, who has shares in school. And I show different techniques and stuff like that, but I'll never show my game, if that makes sense. I'll show a generalization of what to do and strategy and what's focused on and not. But my personal game on what I do for my style, I'll never show it because that's something for only me and my coaches to know.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I have had it tested. There are guys that have more punch power than me on the machine. Probably in real life as well, whatever. But I think I don't want to tell you because I don't want people to watch it and know my secrets. But I punch people when they're not expecting it and they're the one that hurt. I disguise it in a certain way.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are you replaying in your head over and over again? Absolutely. But there's one thing that I know for sure. This is nailed on, guaranteed. And this goes for any human being in the world. And this has been proved time and time again, even though sometimes I don't believe that it can happen. But now I know if I... human being in the face as hard as I can and it lands they will be unconscious I know it because it's been proved at the elite level multiple times so I need one and that's it”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've definitely played it a lot. But I do that with all opponents, even guys in the division right now who have not got any prospects of fighting at the moment. I think about that a lot. Like I think about how I match up physically or mentally with them.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's so much of my game that I've not even been close to showing. I'm very excited to surprise some of these guys when I do show it.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Film study, like he loves watching his opponent and seeing how they move, seeing the patterns that they bring up. And like, good luck doing that with me, mate, because the footage isn't out there. And I think that's also part of the reason why he's not quick to sign any contracts or to agree on anything. Yeah, the money's a factor, of course. Yeah, he's right at the end of his career and he might want to retire. I don't know. I don't know how John's mind works. But definitely somewhere, it's an insecurity of his that there isn't any footage out there of me that you can watch for longer than three or four minutes. And that is just a humongous advantage for me, massive”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I have never been in a fight where I'm trying to finish, really. I'm just trying to go out there, do my thing, see what comes and see what's what like. And the fact that people are doubting what I can do, just because they don't know, because they've not seen it with their own eyes, they think I can't do it, which to me is a humongous advantage. Humongous advantage like John, John's, for example, is known for his.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love that. Like, if people think that's all I bring to the table. Begin a bit of a mystery. I absolutely love that. There's so much of my game that I've not had the opportunity to show yet. And I absolutely love it, you know, when people critique the fact that I've not been into the later rounds or maybe I've not got the condition that other guys have got. Look, that's not my problem. That's the problem of my opponents. They can't deal with what I'm throwing. I never ever go out there to finish the fight quick. It just happens. And that isn't actually an issue for me. That's the issue for the guy standing across the octagon from me because”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's the difference. Like a lot of people, like any heavyweight, put a pair of gloves on them, they can knock anybody out, that goes without saying we're massive guys. But my decision making. Elite elite, the best, some of the best in MMA. And I hate to sit here with a lot of cameras around me and look you in the face and tell you that. But it's the honest truth. I believe that. I'm also almost in my prime. I'm hungry and I bring all these physical and technical attributes to the table which somebody like, for example, Stephen Milchich, who's 11, 12 years older than me and a million miles on the clock doesn't bring.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. Absolutely. It's difficult because I don't want to over obsess about it because there's no contract with my name and his name signed. But in the back of my mind, when I'm training, of course, I'm thinking about that kind of stuff. But I think what I bring to the table is I'm way bigger than anyone he's ever fought. I'm close to my prime. I don't think I've reached it quite yet. I think I've still got maybe a year or so before I get there. And I think I'm just really, I don't want to say I'm athletically gifted because I've definitely put a lot of work into it. But I think when it comes to athleticism for a big guy, I think I'm like, I don't want to sound like I'm blowing my own trumpet, but I'm just being real. I think that I'm head and shoulders above any other heavyweight. And not only that, my decision making.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think in today's mixed martial arts, everybody has to do all that. Arguably, everybody has to be almost elite in everything. The thing that he does really well is he does everything on his terms inside the octagon. Like, everybody can do all the stuff that you just listed, punch kick, elbow, knee, wrestle, grapple, choke, armbar, whatever. He does it all on his terms, and that is something that is the elite of the elite. And like I say, all of us, all of us, when I say us, I'm talking about the professional MMA fighter who's had one fight to John Jones. All of us, everything in between that can do everything really well. You have to be able to be able to swim. But he just does it on his terms when his opponent is not expecting it. And that is unbelievable.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“John Jones, one of the best wrestlers ever in MMA and a 42-year-old Steepe. So he chose really, really well what he does. But he just uses his distance management and his timing is incredible. Like the way he uses the attributes that he's got is honestly like from somebody who's studied martial arts from eight years old. It's like it's almost like beautiful for me to watch the way he expresses different techniques under that much pressure against elite competition. It's amazing to watch.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, first of all, John Jones is a light heavyweight. So he's now moved up to heavy. He's had two fights heavyweight, but traditionally, he's a light heavyweight. For a light heavyweight, he's extremely long in terms of wingspan and leg length. And when you're that much taller, and this is not, I'm not saying anything about it, but most of the guys he's fought. from middle weight coming up. So he's generally the taller guy and keeps people at the end of his reach so well, like distance management is one of the best ever. He does that really well. And then when he's moved up to heavyweight, he's fought a guy in Suragan who, no disrespect to him, doesn't have a ground game.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, but Steve is also 42 years old with a million miles on the clock. You have to remember that. But you are right, you're definitely right. But from seeing it up close, because I was sat. I was almost in touch and distance at the octagon. Steepe was more than offbeat in that fight in terms of. How far he is away from his prime.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Will he has a certain way of making fighters fight his style, if that makes sense. He will constantly Keep his opponent guessing. With kind of like Different things that like he will always have a style that suits him really well and he will Forces opponents to fight that way. If that makes sense. Yeah, it does. I guess it's kind of difficult if you're uneducated on it. But he has his style and he will never. Come out of that and risk fighting somebody else's style ever. He will constantly force elite guys to fight his style, which is really, really difficult to do in it in a technical perspective.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not saying that. I'm saying that he's Cho's very well. He chose very, very wisely. Right opponents at the right time, which is super smart. Solve to answer your question, yeah. I probably am saying that.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Extremely smart. Extremely smart, the way he Goes about his business in the octagon, but also His business outside the Octagon and the matchups that he's chose for himself. Very smart, very, very smart. Guys, who matches up stylistically really well with or who are well past the prime I think it's genius. I think it's absolute genius.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I'd be an idiot otherwise. Like, he's the best, one of the best to ever put a pair of USC gloves on. And I think, like I say, regardless of what he's done outside the octagon. For anyone watching who doesn't know, I am referring to these legal issues that he's got. And that's nothing to do with me. I have no idea about any of that. I don't know him personally. I think inside the octagon he is 100% one of the best people to ever do it.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Obviously, that's the subject that people want to talk about. That's what people are interested in. John is an absolute legend of the sport to answer the. The way I feel about him personally is quite relevant. The stuff that he's done in the UFC, he will be absolutely immortal forever. He will always be known as one of the best ever. And I really Mixed martial arts fan really, really respect what he's done in the sport.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of people now think all Tom does is talk about John. It is not the case. I don't want to talk about John, but that's all people ask me about. Do you know what I mean? Like I said before, it's probably one of the most anticipated fights in UFC history, me and John Jones.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which for anyone from the UK knows that that is like a prestigious, like if you're a UFC fighter and you're English, you want to fight the all two, especially headline the O2. That's an unbelievable experience. And I couldn't then never fight at the O2 arena again. I had to fight at the O2. They were the two things. I wanted to fight Blades again and I wanted to fight at the O2 just so I can mentally just tick them two things off and then move forward. And I did both of them and I won both fights. So happy with that.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“15 seconds, yeah, right at the beginning of the fight I wanted to fight Curseus again. That was really important to me as I fight him again because. I can't function as a human being knowing that I trained for a fight and didn't actually fight somebody. If I would have lost, at least I can look myself in the mirror and be like, I try my best. That's all I can do. But I seriously had unfinished business. And the other thing was that the injury happened at the Alta Arena.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. No, no, because I was really particular that. So there were two things that I really wanted to do after the fight. So I lost a guy called Curtis Blades. That's when I injured my knee.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Maybe I can just do that. But then I started reading these negative comments, and I was like, actually, I want to fight. Like, what is this? Where am I going? I'm letting these regular people talk to me and put regular thoughts in my mind. And I'm not a regular person. So I'm an elite special athlete. And I always have that belief in myself that I'm not regular and I don't want to be regular and I can't let regular people tell me how to function. And I was almost at the point where I was letting regular people tell me how to function. And the kind of online haters spurred me to be like, nah, I've got to come back and win this title. There's no chance this is going to be the end of me.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I tried not to, but I always do. I try not to, but yeah, but I think it's quite healthy in a way, though, as well. I think that fueled me a lot as well is that people started quitting on me and stuff. And a lot of people, even people were like, yeah, you know, you've got a lot of ways to make money now. Like you've already done loads of media, you know, you go on the mic and stuff. You can maybe be a pundit and stuff like that. For a time, I was like, yeah, maybe I can. Maybe I can just like, you know, be a pundit. And, you know, I've been in there. I've main event in a couple of times and stuff. I've been thought almost the elite level.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, of course, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, definitely. Because I didn't have an actual fight, I felt like people thought I faked the injury or something. So I think like a lot of people thought he didn't really want to be in there with that opponent. I felt because especially my opponent at the time, Kurt, it's Blaze, he was like running through everybody. And I felt like a lot of people were like, Tom just didn't want to fight. So I felt like very insecure about myself at the time. And I really, like when I came back, I really had a chip on my shoulder and I still got it that like I want to prove to everybody that I am the best everywhere in the world.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Knowing my life to an all-right standard for however long. I was like, well, I'm financially comfortable now. I've had some fights in the UFC. I've had some success. I think I was just outside the top five at that time or something, maybe top ten. I've gone way further than a lot of people have done. Maybe I'll just leave it there”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was just going and going and going, and when I had that, and next minute I'm sat on the couch for six months with this big cut on my leg. I can't walk. I'm doing physio and doing all the rest of it. And yeah, I just feel like as an athlete and a man, I really had that time to slow down and really assess my life and be like, this isn't working. It needs to change. That was actually the closest point where I was pretty close to throwing in the towel then, to be honest, on my career. At that point I'd not made like mega money or anything, but I'd made enough money to be comfortable and I bought a house at that time. I'd made some decent money but nothing like life changing but I'd made enough money to then”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As an athlete I needed to, not only as an athlete, as a man, I needed to really slow down. Because I was on this fast track. It's like I got in the USC and it was just like fight, fight, fight, and every time it's like more and more popular, more interviews, more media, more fame, more money, more this. And I didn't really have time to assess really what was around me. And I didn't have time to start cutting people off and start changing this and tweaking this and doing I just didn't see it because I was on this like”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Completely different people. I feel like I completely rebuilt myself, not only physically. Because I think you can look and look at me physically in fights before and see a physical change just in terms of my physique and the way I'm moving around. Obviously, I had one leg before and I've got two legs now, which is way better. But mentally, the growth has been enormous is that I completely cut out anything negative that was in my life. Anything that wasn't anything or anyone that wasn't serving me to become like run parallel with my journey, to becoming the best heavyweight in the world, I completely cut off. Because I was so superstitious, I think.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Start leaving the building, it's a bad feeling. It's a really bad feeling. So that really made me like reassess some of the decisions that I was making at the time.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like superstitious. I didn't want to change anything because I'm like, well, it's going well. I don't want to start changing. And I knew that there was a lot of things wrong. I knew that there were people that I shouldn't have been surrounding myself with. I knew that there were training sessions that were just wasting my time really and they were toxic people around me that shouldn't have been there and they needed to go but I didn't want to change everything because it was all going so well and when when you talk about like a rock bottom moment When you sat the floor of the UFC octagon in the altar arena with your leg up in the air and this 25,000 people who are there for you.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At the time I was doing a lot of things wrong in my personal life and in my professional life. Like I had a lot of people around me that shouldn't have been there. I was doing some training sessions and training with people that I shouldn't have really been training with. I wasn't living a good lifestyle in terms of diet and my recovery. I wasn't 100% focused and I should have been. But because everything was going so well and I'm a little bit.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had a go came up short. I can live with that. Whereas with the knee I went in there. Injured straight away. The knee was down. I couldn't walk. Surgery and then I was unsure whether my career was going to be over or not. And that was a massive, massive turning point in My life, not just in my career, but in my life. That really, really give me a chance to think and slow down and figure out what's important and what isn't. And that all came because of one of the biggest worst things that's happened in my life, but one of the most important things as well. I got the most growth from that knee injury than I've got from anything else in my life, I think.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I'm sure you won't like for a long time. Yeah, pretty much. I never kicked with the leg. I never went on the knee ever or anything like that. Anyway, this kept going and going. I was fighting with one leg. Then the most devastating thing that happened in my whole career was my knee just give out in front of 25,000 home fans in the ultra arena in London. In what was a title eliminator fight? So if either of us would have won that fight, we would have got a title shot next. So it's a massive fight with title implications. And not only did I lose the fight, Because of the injury. Losing the fight is one thing. Like, if I go in there, I have a good fight. I show off all my training, but I get knocked out, for example. Even though I'm going to be sad that I've lost the fight, I am relatively satisfied that I went in there.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“First of all, I've had a knee problem for a long time. I started the knee problem when we were talking about the things that we've just been talking about, the financial struggles. And I knew that I was never kind of like one, two fights away from getting to the UFC. So I wanted to train through the knee problems. Then I got to the UF I'm training. I fight, I win. He's all right. I'm doing pretty well here. Like, I can fight with one knee. Fight again, a win, then I get a new contract, and then. They offer me another fight. I don't want to say no to the UFC. I'm on this roll. I've still got this bad knee. I'm training with one leg.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Remove the belt. I mean, it's not, I'll be honest, mate, it's not that exciting Probably stinks as well. Probably smell it from over It's clean, actually. It's not too bad. This is a knee part.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely, definitely. I think the new generation is definitely coming in now. In the old guard, the old champions are kind of, they're at the back end of the career and now it's time for new guys, which is that's progression. That's great.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Start from a grassroots team as a kid, then you go to an academy and then you can get signed at the age of like 12, 13 and start playing for the under 13s and professional club. And there's a place where you can go and obviously football's a tough game. They can cut you off like that as well. At least there's a career path of what you're going to do and where you're going to go. Whereas MMA basically shooting in the dark for 95% of it. And I'm very lucky to have people like my wife, my family, my mum and dad and the people around me who believe in me as well.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She understands more than anybody. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, if it wasn't for her, my dad, my mum, a couple of friends around, I would have been, yeah, I would have been a mess. Absolute mess, yeah. She was very understanding because I know that most women. Would have been putting the pressure on big time. Yeah, she was because when we met, I've been with her since I was 19, she was 19, also we're the same age. That was my dream from the beginning. So she like got on board with that. And she's kept me, she stopped me from quitting a lot of times as well. She stopped me from quitting so many times. Yeah, this sport's tough. And like I said, there's no, so in football, for example, I know a little bit about football.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Control as such what you kids, you can't mold a kid into what you want it to be. You can't say like, because I've got three kids and they're all completely different. They're all brought up exactly the same, but they're all completely different. And you can never say, this is what my kid's going to be. And this is who he's going to be and how he's going to be. But just to be able to hopefully bring some kind of positive outlook on their life and hopefully give them a positive experience on this earth is what I'm looking to do.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Being in a relationship is not easy in any In any regard, being in a relationship and sharing your life with somebody isn't easy It did. It did, but you know what we got through it and we're really strong, and I'm really happy with the family unit that we've built. I try and be the best dad that I can be. That's more important than anything else to me, is just spending time and making my kids as good as I can. And I'm aware that as a dad and as a parent, you can't.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was still aware of how lucky I was to have three beautiful children and still be chasing the dream that I was on. But I think I just hated owing anybody money. Like I felt like I just hate going to people and asking them for money. Like that was like my worst nightmare. I had to lend, like, borrow a lot of money off my dad. I had to borrow some money off friends just to put fuel in the car to get to the gym, to be living in what I thought the time was like a make-believe. I didn't think it was a make-believe dream, but I think I feel like the people on the outside thought, what is he doing? What is this guy doing? Like, he needs to look after his family. I felt that a lot. And a lot of that might have just been in my own psyche, to be honest with you. A lot of it, I don't think, came from my close circle. But I remember having to borrow money from friends to put fuel in my car, buying nappies for my kids and stuff like that, just so I can keep living on this dream of having a fight in six weeks, getting 600 quid and being able to give them 20 quid back. Like that was tough.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The money situation that my career is not going anywhere, the stress I was under, just trying to be a young guy but having all this responsibility on me. But like I said, I absolutely wouldn't change it for the world. It has literally shaped me into the person that I am today and I'm really, really proud of where I am now. But at the time it was very tough for me mentally.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Try and get my career off the ground. Like it was really, really tough at the time. So I think I was just in survival mode, to be honest with you. Actually, it's funny you should say because I've been having these conversations recently with a couple of friends. He's like, my friend now is having twins. He's just found out. He asked me, what's it like? And I said, to be honest with you, and I'm going to be really honest because I pride myself as a nice person, it was the hardest thing I've ever done. I can't even remember the first year. And I can't because it was so difficult. And it wasn't just the twins. It was also”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Great, very, very tough. I think. First of all Everybody's different, but having three kids at the age of 25 is quite tough. I don't think I was, well, I wouldn't change it for the world. I absolutely love being a dad, love my kids to death, the most important thing in my life. I wouldn't change it for the world, but I think now looking back at me like seven years ago having three children, I don't know how I did it. It was really, really tough. Like, I think that's really young. And I was very underdevelopmentally to have that kind of responsibility and raise children and a family and a house and have a wife.”
2025-06-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Tom Aspinall: The UFC Doesn't Want You To Know This! Jon Jones Wasn't Living Like An Athlete! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT