Aspinall undergoing surgery for injured knee

The UFC heavyweight has provided an update on the knee injury he suffered at UFC London. 

Tom Aspinall is headed for surgery.

The UFC heavyweight injured his knee in his fight with Curtis Blaydes at UFC London this past Saturday. Aspinall threw a kick and collapsed to the canvas, prompting referee Herb Dean to step in and wave off the action after 15 seconds. The extent of the injury was unknown, but UFC color commentator Michael Bisping said during the broadcast the cageside doctors suspected a torn MCL.

Aspinall has since provided an update on his injured knee. The 29-year-old still needs an MRI scan to assess the damage but expects to undergo surgery next week.

“Hello, everybody. Just a quick update on the knee situation because plenty of people are asking about the diagnosis and what happened to the knee,” said Aspinall on Twitter. “Now anybody who’s got knee problems knows that in order to have an MRI scan — an accurate MRI scan — you need to let the swelling go down. So I spoke to the surgeon. We have a rough idea of what it is, but we are currently waiting for the swelling to go down, and I will be having the MRI scan this weekend and having surgery early next week in London.

“So I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who’s reached out. Obviously I’ve been offline, been down in the dumps since Saturday night, but hopefully we’ll get it fixed, get the surgery early next week. Thank you.”

Aspinall was on an eight-fight win streak before his first-round TKO loss to Blaydes. The No. 6 heavyweight finished all five of his opponents since joining the promotion two years ago, including ‘Performance of the Night’ awarded submissions of Andrei Arlovski and Alexander Volkov.

There is no word on his recovery timeline, but depending on the severity of the injury, Aspinall could be out of action until 2023.