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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“So my dad originally worked in IT. He got paid some redundancy money, and then he decided to start teaching grappling full time, which we're talking, when we're talking like 20 years ago, the grappling industry in the UK was non-existent. And obviously I was quite a, I was a budding. But I wasn't even like a budding prospect at the time. I had no fights at the time. But I was training and I was enjoying my training. And my dad wanted to spend more time perfecting me to help me do what I enjoy a little bit more.”
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
“So, I'm from a place I was born in Salford, which is like Greater Manchester, and then I moved to a different part of Greater Manchester, a place called Allerton. There's not a lot of stuff going on there, to be honest. I mean, it's just like a normal working class blue-collar place. Do you know what I mean? A lot of families like the parents working factories, they are mechanics, they Plum”
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, as soon as I kind of went to a gym and I realized there's people in this gym who are adults and they don't have a regular job and they're just showing up to the gym every day and fighting every few months and getting money for it. I was literally this is what I want 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
“While it depends on the age, of course, but I think if you would have asked me from the age of being Nine years old and above I would have said that I'm going to be UFC heavyweight jumping.”
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
“Thank you very much for having me If you're there, as always, because we know each other now and I know it's difficult when you know somebody personally, anytime I fight, you've got to strap in, be ready for anything because it's a heavyweight airmate at the highest level and anything can happen. So thank you for having me, Stephen, and I look forward to seeing you there. Thank 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
“It's a great question. I don't know if it will be watching this. I'm not sure. But if he is, I think he's had an amazing career and I think he should enjoy the rest of his life. I think if he truly feels like he's done enough, which he keeps saying that he does, he will be at peace. He doesn't need me or anybody else to tell him how good he's done. He'll know it himself. So I hope that he's enjoying his life. He's enjoying his family and he's celebrating his career because it's been amazing.”
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, it was just mainly my oldest son because my twins, they're a little bit too young to really understand. They've just turned six, so they don't really get it. But my oldest son's nine almost. His friends are following MMA a little bit more. So he kind of started thinking it's cool now. So I told my son, I was like, listen, I'll just let you know, John Jones retired. I'm the undisputed champion now. I've got, you know, there's one, and he was just like, oh, okay. And I was like, I know you're not that bothered. I'm just letting you know. So if your friends say anything, you know. And he was like, okay, thanks.”
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
“To be honest, it didn't really make much of a difference. I think a lot of people said the same thing outside of my family as well. It was like you were kind of the champion anyway because I think the way that John Jones played it the last year or so, it just didn't, a lot of people didn't see him as the unified heavyweight champion anyway. So I think a lot of people close to me, like I told my kids this morning, they were just like, not bothered at all. Didn't make the slightest bit of difference. I said, Look, I'm only telling you so when your friends tell you at school, you'll know and they were like, okay, fair enough. That was it. There was no great reaction 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
“Just doing bits for the UFC, meeting fans and doing bits of training, just being around the scene. I don't often, to be honest, I'm so routine based and goal focused that I don't like to leave my home routine and training regimen that often. So when I go to the US and do things like this, I like to do as much in a short space of time as possible so I can get back to my, because I know what I need to do to be good and to win fights. And that's be at home and be my routine and be focused. So I don't like to leave my routine too much and go overseas and do all this other stuff. So I'll be killing as many birds with one stone in this trip as possible.”
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
“No, so I'm trading constantly regardless if I've got a fight or not. The only thing that changes for me is basically intensity in the sessions. But I'm actually going to Vegas for, well, I am the heavyweight champion of the world, so they're going to want me at the big shows. So I'm going to be showing my face there, doing a little bit of media and stuff. I will, of course, be doing a little bit of training. Just different stuff. I'm working with a new sponsor who I'm going to be with till the end of my career, which is champion. So I'll be working with them out 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
“Where do you find this one? I'm going to be fighting hopefully twice this year. That's my plan. I think I've wasted enough time now. We're looking for a quick, we're looking to get a fight booked quick, and it's looking like it's going to be pretty soon anyway. And then hopefully if everything goes well in the first one, I'm uninjured, which is, you know, it's easier said than done, getting through a fight with a guy my size and coming out with no injuries. But if I can do that, I would like to fight at the end of the year as well. That'd be perfect.”
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, I'm more than happy being chased. That's fantastic. I would rather be the hunted as opposed to the hunter because I don't like chasing fights. I like just being the guy and everyone comes to me. That's fantastic. So most that I've actually fought a lot of the top 10. One of the guys I've not fought is Cyril Ganner, a French guy. That's a fight that I was actually chasing that fight a few times before. He was ducking and diving around himself a little bit. So he is due a little bit of a beating off me. I look forward to that. A couple more guys down the rankings, a Brazilian guy Jelton, Almade or I've not fought. There's a guy I've already beat called Alexander Volkov, who's doing really well for himself as well. So who knows? You never know in the heavyweight division. There's a couple of up-and-coming guys who I've not mentioned as well. So there's some good fights to be made over the next couple of years for sure.”
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
“UFC champion, and before John Joel's retired, there were two of us in the division, which is a little bit of a strange, strange conundrum that I wasn't comfortable being in. I think that there should be one guy in every division. And now that John's gone, obviously we didn't get to fight about it, which I would have liked. But at least there's one guy. And I'm happy with that moving forward.”
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
“So, I don't want to go into the details of my contracts, of course, but you'll get if someone pays $60 for a pay-per-view, you might get $2. You might get $5 per bar, you might get different people have different perks in the contract. So I was already having that because I was a champion in my own right anyway. But yeah, nothing actually really changes just the fact that there isn't two belts anymore in the division, which is great. There's one face, one name, and one guy in the division. And to me, that is what separates MMA from other sports, other fight sports at least, is that, for example, in boxing, you can have like five, six, seven, eight, even sometimes different organizations. You've got the WBO, the WBC, the IBO, the IBF, and all these different ones that I don't even know about. And they all have different champions in each organization. Whereas generally speaking, the number one guy in the world is the...”
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, I was on because I was at Interim in my own right as well. So I was already getting a lot of the perks that come with being a champion, stuff like pay-per-view points is something that you get when you're a champion. You also get, you know, pay-per-view points is where you get a cut of the pay-per-view sales.”
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 sure with where he's at, he can jump the queue anytime he wants. So, you know, this time a year down the line, we'll have another three or four contenders knocking on for a title shot, I'm sure. But anytime someone like him wants to step up and say, listen, I want to fight again, they're going to get an immediate title shot. I'm never going to count that out. And I'm sure that maybe he's, you know, I'm in a spot in my career where there's not that much footage out there on me. Maybe he sees something on me in the next few fights and he thinks, you know what? If I do get the opportunity to put John Jones on my resume, of course I'll accept that with open arms. But if not, I'm content. I'll move forward and I'll create my own legacy without him.”
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 try not to let my ego take control of me. I could see why people would think that. But to me, it's just like, maybe when I've retired myself, which is not going to happen in the next couple of years at least, I'll think about that kind of stuff. But for right now, it's just like we've got to focus on another fight. We've got to get me active. We've got to get me back out there. And doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Because right now I've been thinking about that whole situation and being held up and frustrated for almost a year. And it's not It's what I love doing. I've been held back for the whole time and it's not been very fun, to be honest with you. So the ego side of my brain is like, yep, I've kind of beaten without fighting him. And I did say that. I've said that the whole time that I'm going to retire and without fighting him. But I don't kind of want to harp on about that, really. I want to kind of just put that behind me and move forward on my own path now.”
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 he's entitled to do whatever he wants, to be honest. I'm not, he's done way more in the sport than I have, so he should do whatever he feels is right. Speaking as just a fighter here, if it was so public. For me personally, I don't know if my ego could take it having not done it. But that's honestly, that's his prerogative. I don't hold any ill will against him for it. And I'm happy to move on with my career now that it's over because you've got to remember I've not fought for nearly a year now because of this. And I've been healthy the whole time. I've been in the gym the whole time. I've been doing exactly what I'm supposed to do as a high level operating athlete at the elite level. So I'm glad that that is behind us now.”
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 really want the Undisputed title. That's really what I was chasing the whole time. I was never really chasing one guy. John Jones was always just a bonus because of the stuff, because of the resume that he's got and because of the name that he has and the status that he holds was within the sport. He's so well respected. I think that would have been a great scalp for me to have on my resume. But ultimately, I was chasing the belt. I was chasing being the number one heavyweight fighter in the world, which I am. And I can say that I am now, especially with John not around and he's retired and that's behind us. But ultimately, the thing that I wanted really was the belt. The fact that John's left the sport, obviously it would have been better for me career-wise to have that name financially. It would have been great as well. But the thing that I was ultimately chasing was the heavyweight title.”
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, I only know a hundred percent actually last night it was always like rumours of him retiring, he's putting stuff out on the media saying that he's retiring because MMA especially at an elite level is quite there's not many people like you hear rumours a lot so I heard rumors from people close to him that he's going to retire and that he's not living like an athlete who's fighting at the top level anymore and that he's not interested and he's not in the gym and etc But I knew that there was going to be a decision made by the USE coming soon whether he's going to continue and we got it last night for sure we finally got it confirmed last night so I am very happy to get this part of my career behind me in the rearview mirror now”
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
“Yes, but I just didn't expect it when it happened. I expected it. So next week I'm going to Vegas. I'm going for the, well, they say it's the biggest fight card of the year, a fight card called International Fight Week. And I knew that I had some news coming on International Fight Week. We got wind that John Jones is going to retire and that they're going to announce it on International Fight Week. But for some reason, they announced it last night. I don't know what that reason is. It took me by surprise at least, but they announced it last night.”
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
“It takes years to become an overnight success. I've been going since I was eight years old and I've been up against so many tests from career ending injuries to financial struggles to mental struggles and at one point we had three kids at the age of 25 and I had no money. My first profile I got 200 quid. I felt the pressure trying to be a young guy but having all this responsibility on me having to borrow money from friends to buy nappies for my kids so I can keep living on this dream but outlasting people and consistency is massively underrated and in today's day and age people just have a lot of options but that obsessiveness of being 100% focused on something. You win.”
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'd be an idiot otherwise. But now that I understand fear and what it does for me, it just fuels me so much in a way that nothing else can. So I'll be prepared to do whatever I need to do. But I just don't like what he's doing because I can't function knowing that I trained for a fight and didn't actually fight somebody.”
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