A second sell-out, and a very different ending
Four months earlier, Tom Aspinall had submitted Alexander Volkov in the first round on the same canvas, in front of the same fans, and had walked out of The O2 as the hottest heavyweight prospect in the sport. When the UFC returned to London on 23 July 2022 for UFC Fight Night: Blaydes vs. Aspinall, the storyline seemed obvious: another home banner-raising, another step towards a heavyweight title shot for Manchester's own. The arena sold out again — 17,813 through the doors, marginally more than the March card — and the buzz around Aspinall headlining a second consecutive O2 event was, by all accounts, at fever pitch.
What actually happened inside the cage lasted barely a quarter of a minute. Aspinall and Curtis Blaydes touched gloves, exchanged in the centre of the octagon, and within fifteen seconds Aspinall's knee gave way. The fight was waved off and ruled a TKO due to injury — not a finish by strikes, not a stoppage born of Blaydes's own work, but the cruellest kind of ending in combat sport: a serious knee injury cutting a headline appearance short before it had really begun. For a partisan London crowd that had turned up to see their new heavyweight star continue his rise, the silence that followed was the polar opposite of the March card's pandemonium.
This is the fight's defining "vs." trap, and it is worth stating plainly: Curtis Blaydes won this bout. The result belongs to him on the official record, regardless of how it was earned or how the narrative of the night unfolded. Aspinall's injury — later confirmed as a significant knee problem consistent with an ACL tear — meant the fight could not continue, and under the unified rules that outcome is scored as a TKO victory for the fighter still able to compete. It is a result that flatters no one and satisfies no one, but it is the result all the same.
Results in full
The card was reshuffled before fight night when Darren Till, originally scheduled to fight Jack Hermansson in the co-main event, withdrew through injury. Chris Curtis stepped in as a late replacement and went the distance with Hermansson. Here is how the night played out, from the top of the card down through the featured British names.
| Fight | Result | Method |
|---|---|---|
| Heavyweight — Main event | Curtis Blaydes beat Tom Aspinall | TKO (knee injury), round 1 at 0:15 |
| Middleweight — Co-main event | Jack Hermansson beat Chris Curtis | Unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27) |
| Lightweight | Paddy Pimblett beat Jordan Leavitt | Submission (rear-naked choke), round 2 — Performance of the Night |
| Women's Flyweight | Molly McCann beat Hannah Goldy | TKO (spinning back elbow and punches), round 1 — Performance of the Night |
Two Performance of the Night bonuses for two Scouse fan favourites went a long way towards salvaging the mood in the arena. Without them, this would be remembered purely as the night London lost its heavyweight hero in the worst possible way. With them, it became a card that at least gave the home support something to celebrate on the walk back to North Greenwich station.
Pimblett and McCann keep the party going
Paddy Pimblett had already won over an O2 crowd in March 2022 with a first-round submission of Kazula Vargas, and he returned in July to do it again against Jordan Leavitt, needing a second round to lock in a rear-naked choke and add another finish to his Liverpool fanbase's growing highlight reel. It was the kind of performance that had already made Pimblett one of the most bankable domestic draws on any UFC London bill — a fighter whose entrance alone could lift the roof off The O2 regardless of where he sat on the card.
Molly McCann, fresh off one of the most replayed knockouts in UFC history — her spinning back elbow finish of Luana Carolina in March — produced an almost identical script in July, stopping Hannah Goldy inside the first round with a spinning back elbow and follow-up punches. Two Performance of the Night bonuses in the space of four months turned "Meatball" McCann into one of the genuine cult heroes of the O2 era, a fighter whose name on a London card became, for a period, close to a guarantee of a highlight reel finish.
Between them, Pimblett and McCann's back-to-back London wins in 2022 did more than fill out a results table — they gave the UFC a template for how a Fight Night card built around a home heavyweight star could still deliver for the crowd even when the marquee attraction fell through in the worst way imaginable. For a fuller look at how British fighters have fared across every UFC London card, the British fighters hub tracks these runs fight by fight.
The O2 Arena: London's home for UFC
By the summer of 2022, The O2 Arena in Greenwich had already established itself as the UFC's default London venue, and this was the promotion's second visit inside four months — a scheduling decision that speaks to how reliably the building sells out for the sport. Configured for combat sports, The O2's bowl seating wraps tightly around the octagon, and its capacity in the high teens of thousands (17,813 for this card) makes it comparable to the UFC's other major European arenas. The venue's transport links via the Jubilee line and North Greenwich station, combined with its surrounding bars and restaurants, have made it a natural home for fight weekends that stretch well beyond the few hours of live action inside the arena itself.
The O2's importance to UFC London goes beyond convenience. Its atmosphere — loud, partisan, and famously vocal for home fighters — has become part of the pitch for booking British stars in main and co-main event slots. That same energy that had roared Aspinall to a first-round finish in March 2022 was primed to do so again in July; the fact that it curdled into stunned silence instead is precisely what makes this card so memorable for the wrong reasons. Anyone planning to attend a future card at the venue can find current seating tiers and indicative costs on the tickets and prices page.
Heavyweight title picture: the stakes behind the injury
The heavyweight division has long been the UFC's most volatile weight class, prone to sudden swings in the title picture on the back of a single finish — or, as this card demonstrated, a single injury. Heading into July 2022, Aspinall's win over Volkov had vaulted him into serious title conversations, and a win over the durable, wrestling-based Blaydes would have pushed him even closer to a shot at the belt. Blaydes himself had spent years as one of the division's most consistent gatekeepers, a fighter capable of testing any contender put in front of him with a heavy top game and dangerous striking.
That is precisely what made the manner of this result so cruel for the London crowd: this was not a mismatch or a routine main event, but a genuine crossroads fight in a thin, unpredictable division, decided in fifteen seconds by a non-contact injury rather than by either man's fight plan. Heavyweight title pictures can turn on results like this one just as easily as they turn on finishes, and the ripple effects — for both men's respective climbs back up the rankings — played out over the following years.
Career arcs: from that night to now
Tom Aspinall's story after this defeat is one of the more remarkable comeback arcs of the era. Having headlined The O2 three times in total, he returned to the same arena almost exactly a year later, in July 2023, to finish Marcin Tybura inside the opening round and announce his recovery was complete. He went on to become the UFC's undisputed heavyweight champion in June 2025, before a separate injury — this time to his eye, sustained in a bout against Ciryl Gane — led to him vacating the title in September 2026. Across three O2 headline appearances, Aspinall's record reads one first-round submission win, one first-round TKO loss through injury, and one first-round TKO win — a run defined almost entirely by how quickly each of his London fights ended, for better and for worse.
Curtis Blaydes, for his part, continued to occupy a place among the heavyweight division's leading contenders in the years that followed, his win in London standing as one of several notable results against ranked opposition across a long UFC heavyweight career built on wrestling and durability.
Paddy Pimblett's stock has only risen since his double London win in 2022. By January 2026 he had climbed into the top five of the lightweight division and challenged Justin Gaethje for the interim lightweight title at UFC 324, losing a five-round decision but confirming his status as a genuine championship-level operator rather than simply a hometown draw. Molly McCann's career, meanwhile, came full circle at The O2 itself: after her two spectacular 2022 knockouts, she lost her final three fights in the city, including her final UFC appearance in March 2025, after which she announced her retirement from the sport inside the same octagon where she had once been a cult hero. The full arc of both careers, and every other British fighter to have appeared on a London card, is tracked on the British fighters page.
Knee injuries and the long road back
Serious knee injuries of the kind Aspinall suffered — commonly involving ligament damage such as an ACL tear — are among the most feared setbacks in combat sports precisely because they rarely happen gradually. A fighter can be moving freely one moment and unable to bear weight the next, often on a plant or pivot rather than through direct contact from an opponent, which is exactly the pattern observed in this fight. Recovery timelines for this kind of injury typically run to many months of rehabilitation before a fighter is cleared to compete again, and a full return to previous form is never guaranteed even after the physical healing is complete.
What made Aspinall's situation notable in the broader context of the sport is how completely he answered the question when he did return. Rather than easing back in cautiously, he went straight back to the same arena that had seen him hurt and produced another first-round finish, a rare example of a fighter closing the loop on a career-altering setback in almost the same spot it happened. It is the kind of story that UFC London's history keeps producing — heartbreak and redemption within the same postcode — and it is covered in more detail alongside every other twist across the promotion's visits to the city on the UFC London history page.
Where this card sits in UFC London history
UFC Fight Night: Blaydes vs. Aspinall was the second of two O2 cards in 2022 alone, a remarkable frequency that reflected how strong the London market had become for the promotion by that point. Coming so soon after the March card's near-perfect night of finishes, it served as a reminder that live sport does not run on scripts: the same city, the same arena, and largely the same supporting cast of British fighters could produce both one of the best nights in UFC London history and one of its most deflating within the space of four months. Editions before and since — from Leon Edwards's home welterweight title defence at UFC 286 to Lerone Murphy's featherweight title eliminator in 2026 — have shown the same pattern of home stars carrying enormous local expectation into O2 headline slots, with outcomes ranging from triumphant to heartbreaking. The complete run of UFC London cards, in chronological order with full results, is available on the editions page.
Fight Night card structure and how to rewatch
UFC Fight Night events follow a standard broadcast structure: an early prelims segment, a main preliminary card, and then the main card carrying the night's featured bouts up to the co-main and main events. For Blaydes vs. Aspinall, the main card was headlined by the Blaydes-Aspinall heavyweight bout, with the Hermansson-Curtis middleweight fight as co-main, and the Pimblett and McCann bouts featured on the same main card broadcast given their local billing and box-office appeal. This structure — a marquee British name in the main event slot, further domestic stars stacked through the card, and international depth filling out the undercard — has become the standard template for how the UFC books its London shows.
For those looking to revisit the card, UFC Fight Pass carries the full library of past Fight Night events, including the complete Blaydes vs. Aspinall broadcast, while highlight packages of the Pimblett and McCann finishes remain widely available through the UFC's official channels. As with any past event, checking the current listing on your regional broadcaster or streaming service is the quickest way to confirm access, since rights arrangements do shift over time.
Frequently asked questions
Did Tom Aspinall win or lose at UFC Fight Night: Blaydes vs. Aspinall?
He lost. Despite headlining the event and being the hometown favourite, Aspinall suffered a knee injury just 15 seconds into the first round, and the fight was ruled a TKO win for Curtis Blaydes due to injury.
What exactly happened to Tom Aspinall in this fight?
Aspinall suffered a serious knee injury early in round one, consistent with an ACL tear, which forced the fight to be stopped. It was not the result of a strike or takedown from Blaydes but an injury sustained in the course of normal movement in the cage.
Who else won for Britain on this card?
Paddy Pimblett submitted Jordan Leavitt in round two to win Performance of the Night, and Molly McCann stopped Hannah Goldy in round one with a spinning back elbow and follow-up punches, also earning Performance of the Night.
What was the attendance for this event?
The O2 Arena sold out again, with 17,813 in attendance — slightly more than the same venue's sell-out four months earlier in March 2022.
Did Tom Aspinall recover from the injury?
Yes. He returned to The O2 a year later, in July 2023, and finished Marcin Tybura in the first round, before going on to become UFC undisputed heavyweight champion in 2025.
Why was Darren Till not in the co-main event?
Darren Till was originally booked to fight Jack Hermansson in the co-main event but withdrew through injury. Chris Curtis stepped in as a replacement and lost a unanimous decision.