{"id":27908,"date":"2025-07-28T16:44:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T16:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/27908\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T16:44:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T16:44:07","slug":"51-year-old-veteran-books-99th-mma-fight-after-ko-loss-to-tom-aspinalls-hardest-hitting-sparring-partner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/27908\/","title":{"rendered":"51-year-old veteran books 99th MMA fight after KO loss to Tom Aspinall&#8217;s hardest-hitting sparring partner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Former PFL star Tyrell Fortune is back on the regional scene, and his next assignment is a 51-year-old veteran with over 100 fights.<\/p>\n<p>The hard-hitting ex-<a href=\"http:\/\/bloodyelbow.com\/tag\/bellator\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bellator<\/a> star is taking on Tony Lopez in the main event of a local show at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix, Arizona. Lopez last fought in a bare knuckle boxing match in 2023, which he lost by knockout just months before his 50th birthday.<\/p>\n<p>That fight was against Sean Turner, <a href=\"http:\/\/bloodyelbow.com\/tag\/tom-aspinall\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tom Aspinall\u2019s<\/a> teammate who the Brit once called his hardest-hitting man he ever sparred. Meanwhile, Fortune is trying to get himself back to the big leagues after leaving <a href=\"http:\/\/bloodyelbow.com\/tag\/pfl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PFL<\/a> following their merger with Bellator.<\/p>\n<p>Tyrell Fortune to fight 51-year-old MMA veteran with over 100 fights<\/p>\n<p>After his entire professional career played out in the big leagues of Bellator and PFL, wrestling standout Tyrell Fortune was let go last year after failing to make the play-offs. He has since headed to Shawn Merriman\u2019s LXF, where he became <a href=\"http:\/\/bloodyelbow.com\/tag\/heavyweight\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">heavyweight<\/a> champion in May.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Regional royalty Tony &#8220;Kryptonite&#8221; Lopez has booked his 99th MMA fight vs. Tyrell Fortune. It&#8217;s his first MMA bout in 3.5 years. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/nb4I8yBhG0\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/nb4I8yBhG0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Nolan King (@mma_kings) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mma_kings\/status\/1949550558437638467?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">July 27, 2025<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>View Tweet<\/p>\n<p>He is staying active and fighting again on August 16, this time for RUF where he will compete for another title. His opponent will be 51-year-old Tony Lopez, who made his MMA debut 20 years ago and has since amassed 99 fights in the cage, as well as countless more across other codes.<\/p>\n<p>Lopez appeared to be finished with MMA after 2022, and likely would have thought his fighting days were over after turning 50 in November of 2023. He won his last MMA bout by knockout against Ben Moa in February of 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Tony Lopez\u2019s last fight was against Tom Aspinall\u2019s hardest-hitting teammate<\/p>\n<p>Last time Lopez got into a ring was for a bare knuckle boxing match with Sean Turner. The Irishman is a professional boxer who has trained with Tom Aspinall, and the UFC heavyweight champion once <a href=\"https:\/\/bloodyelbow.com\/2024\/12\/05\/im-a-ufc-champion-who-sparred-tyson-fury-and-kickboxing-legend-but-nobody-hit-me-harder-than-big-sexy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">even claimed he was the hardest puncher he had ever trained with<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Brit has fought the best of the best in the UFC, and even sparred with Tyson Fury during his days as a boxer. But he claimed Turner, the little-known Dubliner, hit harder than anyone else.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve sparred with a lot of good boxers,\u201d Aspinall told\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/talksport.com\/boxing\/1424611\/tom-aspinall-ufc-spar-tyson-fury-sean-turner\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">talkSPORT<\/a>\u00a0in May 2023. \u201cI\u2019ve sparred Rico Verhoeven a lot, who is the Glory Kickboxing champion, literally the best kickboxer ever, statistically.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was one guy in particular, who I sparred a long time ago, and his name is\u2026 I don\u2019t even remember his name. They used to call him \u2018Big Sexy\u2019. Sean Turner, he is called. I don\u2019t even know if he\u2019s boxing anymore but I did a few rounds with that guy and that guy punches very hard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExtremely hard he punches, he\u2019s definitely one of the heaviest punches I\u2019ve sparred, for sure. I don\u2019t even know if he\u2019s boxing anymore, this was quite a few years ago I sparred him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe, it\u2019s because I didn\u2019t know him. When I was sparring Tyson Fury, Joe Joyce, and Rico Verhoeven, people like that \u2013 these were renowned knockout artists \u2013 I was kind of expecting that a little bit more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis guy, Sean Turner, I didn\u2019t really know who he was, and he hit me really hard, and I was like, \u2018Wow! This guy is packing some serious power.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>  <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former PFL star Tyrell Fortune is back on the regional scene, and his next assignment is a 51-year-old&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,8812,785,5963,85,799,26897],"class_list":["post-27908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-heavyweight","tag-mma","tag-pfl","tag-sports","tag-tom-aspinall","tag-tyrell-fortune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}