UFC London takes place this Saturday with a card currently featuring 15 fights. While this event has a deep lineup with a handful of great fights, none of them will be bigger than the main event, which will see a heavyweight clash between ranked opponents Tom Aspinall and Marcin Tybura. Let’s take a deeper look at this matchup and how it could play out:
Aspinall is 12-3 with a 100% finish rate in his wins and he will be returning to the octagon 364 days after injuring his knee only 15 seconds into his fight with Curtis Blaydes in the same venue. Prior to that unfortunate injury stoppage, Aspinall had strung together five consecutive wins under the UFC banner and was riding a nine-fight winning streak overall. He’s a dangerous striker with a ton of power and one of the rare fighters in the heavyweight division who also has solid wrestling and grappling skills to pair with his striking.
Tybura is 24-7 with fifteen of his wins coming via stoppage and he has won seven of his last eight fights heading into this matchup. Tybura is a pretty well-rounded fighter with a sizable amount of UFC experience, putting together an 11-6 record with the promotion thus far. While Tybura is in the midst of a solid stretch in his career, this will definitely be one of the tougher matchups for him that he has faced in quite some time. While Tybura is pretty efficient everywhere inside the octagon, perhaps his best quality is his cardio and ability to go late into fights without significantly slowing down.
The biggest question mark surrounding this bout will be how Aspinall looks in his first fight back from a fairly serious injury. Assuming Aspinall’s knee has fully healed up, and he doesn’t have a ton of rust to shake off early in the fight, this should be a pretty straightforward matchup where he is just a bit better than Tybura everywhere and picks up another stoppage victory. Aspinall will be the much more dangerous fighter on the feet in this matchup and he will also be the better wrestler and grappler if the fight goes to the ground. While one of Tybura’s best qualities is his cardio, it’s unlikely he will get to utilize that strength here, with Aspinall finishing all twelve of his wins in less than a round and a half and eleven of them coming in the first round.
Although making my pick for the winner of this fight was relatively easy, finding some solid betting value on such a heavy favorite will be a little more challenging. I definitely expect Aspinall to win this one inside the distance, most likely sometime in the first two rounds, and would recommend those two props as the “safest” non-moneyline bets to consider for Aspinall. If you’re looking for a riskier play for this fight, I would suggest sprinkling Aspinall to win by submission and/or Aspinall to win in the second round (no method attached).