UFC interim heavyweight champion, Tom Aspinall, is soaking his knuckles in petrol to make his knuckles harder, one of those bizarre cause-and-effect relationships I had no idea existed. Probably because I never saw that social media clip of bareknuckle legend Joe Joyce sharing his old-school training methods.
I guess it beats getting smashed by a giant truck tire.
“I wanted to resort back to a bit of gypsy heritage that I’ve got, so I thought, right, what I’m going to do is I’m going to make a little ring out of hay bales,” Aspinall told The MMA Hour. “When it gets to about 4 a.m., I get my alarm on, I go outside, do a bit shadowboxing in the hay bales — and then I do the old traveler method of dipping your knuckles in petrol for about 20 minutes as the sun’s coming up, and that hardens your knuckles. These are some of the hardest knuckles in the UFC right here right now. They’re like rocks.”
Maybe he should soak his knee in petrol, as well.
Aspinall (14-3) will defend the substitute strap when he rematches Curtis Blaydes in the UFC 304 pay-per-view (PPV) co-main event on July 27 in Manchester. The winner is expected to unify the heavyweight titles against Jon Jones or Stipe Miocic, depending on the outcome of their November title fight.
To see who else is fighting at UFC 304 click here.
