'Just to correct you' - Former UFC champion slams insane Tom Aspinall theory

Michael Bisping insisted he is too knowledgeable to believe Tom Aspinall's joke that he has been "dipping his hands in knuckle" ahead of his fight on Saturday night.

Aspinall, who hails from Salford, will co-headline UFC 304 at Manchester's Co-op Arena on Saturday night, with the Brit rematching America Curtis Blaydes in his first defence of the interim heavyweight title.

The 30-year-old faced Blaydes at London's O2 Arena in July 2022 but lasted less than 30 seconds of the first one as he suffered a serious knee injury when trying to strike his opponent.

This weekend, then, allows Aspinall the opportunity to avenge the only loss of his UFC career to date and retain his title in front of a packed-out Co-op Arena.

Ahead of the five-round contest, Aspinall has been trying to prank various publications by saying that his fight camp had included dipping his hands in petrol.

But when he tried to continue the joke on TNT Sports' UFC 304 preview show with Adam Catterall, Nick Peet and former UFC middleweight champion Bisping, his quip was shut down by the latter.

"The petrol thing is true, I think that's quite obvious to everyone," joked Aspinall. "I can't just pull that out of thin air. Let's be honest Mike (Bisping), before that [Luke] Rockhold fight there weren't a lot of knockouts happening.

"Since the Rockhold fight, nobody could stand Mike's punches. Do you know what I mean? He was obviously doing the knuckle trick himself."

Bisping, though, was having none of it: "Yeah, yeah. Well, there were a lot of knockouts, Tom, and at one point I had the most knockouts in the division, just to correct you," he replied.

"You can only use that kind of nonsense of much more naive interviewers. We are here for hard-hitting facts!"