Tom Aspinall explains why Georges St-Pierre the ‘greatest UFC fighter of all-time’, says Stipe Miocic is the best heavyweight
Add Tom Aspinall to the list of fighters who believe Georges St-Pierre is the GOAT.
Aspinall recently put on the best performance of his career to date, submitting Alexander Volkov in the first round with a straight armbar at UFC London. The win earned Aspinall a Performance of the Night bonus and caused fans to sing his name outside the O2 Arena in celebration, but for Aspinall, the biggest highlight of the weekend was the love he was shown by the UFC Hall of Famer, Georges St-Pierre.
“Let me just tell you, this morning, the greatest UFC fighter of all-time, GSP, commented on my picture,” Aspinall told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour. “Oh my goodness. ... Honestly, I had goosebumps. I couldn’t believe it. GSP, man! Oh my goodness.”
The debate over the title of greatest of all-time in MMA is a semi-permanent one in MMA, with fighters like Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, Demetrious Johnson, and lately, Khabib Nurmagomedov being thrown in the mix. However, for Aspinall, the answer is easy.
“Of course he’s No. 1, who else is it gonna be?” Aspinall said. “This is what I think: To be the greatest of all time, this is gonna sound like madness, but GSP first of all did it in two weight divisions. Also, GSP had some bad losses and came back. To me, that is a sign of a real champion. Of course you can be like Khabib, and you can be all the rest of it, and that’s brilliant, but what does he do under the adversity? We still don’t know because he’s that much better than everybody else. But in my opinion, two weights, that’s the difference. The two weights.”
That’s unfortunate criteria for Aspinall, who is unlikely to ever be able to compete outside of the heavyweight division. However, the Manchester native has his own GOAT to track down before he can concern himself with the broader GOAT discussion: Stipe Miocic.
“In my opinion, Stipe is the best heavyweight of all-time,” Aspinall said. “I think he deserves an instant rematch. Stipe doesn’t get the love he deserves, in my opinion.”
Aspinall may get a chance to test himself against Miocic soon enough. His win over Volkov moved Aspinall to No. 6 in the UFC’s heavyweight rankings and with talk of an interim heavyweight title being likely, it’s possible Aspinall could face his divisional GOAT choice in the near future.