Tom Aspinall isn’t in need of any advice from Chael Sonnen on being his own hypeman.
Tom Aspinall is one of the fastest-rising fighters in the UFC heavyweight division. He is coming off a huge win over Alexander Volkov at UFC London earlier this year and is now set to headline the next UFC London event in July.
Things are going well for Aspinall, he is currently ranked sixth in the division, but despite this fact, he is still catching some heat from naysayers.
Chael Sonnen has been picking on Aspinall a bit. He was critical of Aspinall’s approach to the media and promoting himself. Sonnen would like to see Aspinall spend more time promoting himself and less time taking a backseat to other contenders.
Aspinall hit back at him saying he was going to stay true to himself and not put on a fake act as some other fighters do.
In a new interview with Fight & Talk, Aspinall explains why people like Sonnen don’t get his approach and why he doesn’t need to hype himself up: He has the entire UK to do that for him.
“I think that’s what like people like Chael and stuff, the Americans don’t really realize like, I don’t need to act like that because I’ve got a whole country behind me and I don’t think when you’re watching on TV, that doesn’t really come across,” Aspinall explained. “But like when you’re live at an event you can really feel like Oh, this guy doesn’t really need to pick himself up anymore because I’m already big deal, if that makes sense. So I’m just gonna be myself.”
The praise and attention Aspinall and the rest of the UK-based fans at UFC London in March were electric. The event was such a success with a record nine performance bonuses given out, one to every fighter with a finish. Aspinall expects just as much hype the next time around in July. He knows of one person already who is personally trying to make it a homegrown crowd for Aspinall.
“Oh, wait, it’s gonna be twice as bad this time. So my friend from my hometown, he bought 1663 tickets this time, so that’s a lot of people. And then there’s so many it’s just gonna go absolutely off this time,” he explained.
Do you think Tom Aspinall needs to spend more time hyping himself up to the media?