Where It Began

On January 17, 2024, I was having lunch at our workshop when I watched a video recently published by Tom Aspinall, where he talks about his tattoos.
At around the four-minute mark, he explains the meaning behind his back tattoo, including a watch tattoo that has since been covered.

I really liked the idea.

I remember thinking that there was something there — something that could become a truly meaningful wristwatch.

Why Do I Have So Many Tattoos?! 😲🖋️🔥 Tom Aspinall

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Reaching Out to Andy Aspinall

So I decided to contact Tom’s manager, coach, and father, Andy Aspinall, and tell him about my idea.
To be honest, I never expected a reply.

But to my surprise, Andy answered quite quickly.

There were a couple of very specific and, frankly, lucky reasons for that.

The first was that Andy told me his sons had taken those watch tattoos based on a story he had told them when they were younger. The story was about how, in life, time and money are never in balance. When you have time, you usually lack money. And when you have money, you are often too busy to enjoy it. You simply have to learn how to live happily despite that imbalance.

The second — and probably even bigger coincidence — was that Andy sent me a photo of himself wearing something that said REI-GI.
It turns out there had once been a brand making martial arts gis under that name. Apparently more of a judo-style, thick gi. That coincidence alone was enough to make Andy reply.

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From an Idea to a Real Project

Honestly, I never expected this to go anywhere. As you can imagine, someone at Tom’s level — the UFC heavyweight champion, often called “the baddest man on earth” — must receive an insane number of messages and collaboration proposals. Considering he has worked with companies as big as Champion, it felt almost unreal right up until the day the watch was handed over.

Still, Andy replied and wanted to see what kind of watch I was thinking of making.

At that point, I started designing.

Every watch I make has to have a reason, a meaning, a purpose. Reigi will never create a limited series just to pump the price by saying “limited equals valuable.” That has never been the point.

At first, I played with the idea of making two or even three different watches based on fight records. At the time, Tom’s record was 15-3-0 (1 NC). Technically, that could have become three different versions. But it felt strange to design a watch around the record of an active fighter — a record that will almost certainly change.

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The Moment It Clicked: 28

Eventually, the idea became obvious.

Tom Aspinall is the 28th UFC Heavyweight Champion.

That is a genuinely meaningful achievement. He is literally one of only 28 people in the world who have ever held that title. And since Reigi’s core purpose is to remind people of their achievements, the concept suddenly felt perfect.

The series would consist of 28 watches. (Tom received 0/28)

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Charity as Part of the Signature Series

The next step was the charity aspect.

I want two things to be true:
A) Reigi should have a positive impact on the world.
B) Signature Series should also give the collaborating individual a way to support a cause that is personally meaningful to them.

As I looked deeper into Tom’s story, I noticed how often he speaks about autism awareness. That naturally became the cause we wanted to support.

Originally, the idea was to donate 10% of the watch price to the National Autistic Society (NAS) to support autism awareness. I even made some Photoshop mockups where their logo appeared on the three-quarter bridge.

However, after watching a video where Tom talked about how difficult it is in the UK to get an autism diagnosis through the public healthcare system — sometimes taking years — the situation became much more concrete. At that age, getting a diagnosis as early as possible can be absolutely critical.

Because of that, we changed the approach.

Instead of a percentage donation, we decided that for every watch sold, we would fund one private medical autism diagnosis for a child who needs it. The logo was dropped, but the purpose became even clearer and more direct.

https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/news/autism-assessment-waiting-times-11

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Movement Design and Materials

From there, I modified the base movement design from the Cornerstone model.

On the German silver three-quarter plate, I added two plaques:

• One showing the individual watch number (xx/28)
  
  
• Another reading: 28th UFC HW C — Twenty-Eighth Ultimate Fighting Championship Heavyweight Champion
  
  

The plaques are made from brass — specifically recycled brass from the spring barrel cover of an old Junghans wall clock.

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Dial Design: Money, Time, and Meaning

After the movement, it was time to move to the dial side.

In a way, this part was easy. The basic idea came straight from Tom’s tattoo, where the indices are currency symbols. But since this was a rare opportunity to create a money-themed watch where the idea wasn’t flexing, but meaning, I wanted to take it further.

In Tom’s tattoo, only the 12-3-6-9 indices are currency symbols. But if we were going to go down the money route, I wanted to do it properly.

So I filled the dial with symbols of the world’s most used currencies and aimed for the greenest “money green” possible.

The base color was achieved through anodizing, just like in my previous models. Glass bead blasting gives the dial a subtle shimmer in sunlight. The exact shade came from Techevon’s color chart — but in practice, finding the right tone took a couple of weeks. The final color depends on anodizing time, current, and dye time. In this case, the dye time is exactly 30 seconds.

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Lume, Details, and Learning New Skills

I also wanted the dial to clearly state what this watch is.

I initially suggested using the nickname “Honey Badger,” which Daniel Cormier gave Tom at UFC 265. That idea came straight back — Tom doesn’t really care for nicknames. So we went with his name at six o’clock instead.

Tom also asked whether the hands could glow in the dark.

Of course, they can.

I designed the hands with very large lume cutouts. At the time, I wasn’t fully thinking about how challenging that would be to execute — usually lume hands are made with much smaller openings. But by getting the lume mixture to exactly the right viscosity, surface tension was enough to fill them properly.

The indices were another matter. I couldn’t accept a design where only the hands glow. That imbalance bothered me too much.

So I contacted Tritec SA, the manufacturer of Swiss Super-LumiNova. Thanks to their excellent support, I ended up buying a tampography machine and learning that skill myself. I couldn’t find a company in Finland willing to print such special materials.

In the end, the indices glow as well.

Currency symbols use Super-LumiNova White Line “Natural”.
The Reigi logo and Tom Aspinall text use Yellow Line Pantone 803C/LE.

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Strap, Case, and the Full Experience

As I’ve said before, a watch has to be a fully thought-out whole.

So, naturally, the strap was made specifically for this watch by Atelier Petrov in Switzerland.

https://www.atelierpetrov.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoqQp2nGEPsWldTkHG8vEfU75JYak0QjhFRV0ywCLe-Ap3nUqxkX

https://www.instagram.com/atelierpetrov/

The box required much more thought. A standard rigid box didn’t feel right. A handmade wooden box didn’t either.

I almost ordered something else when I happened to see a post by Xzibit showing a custom guncase made for him by Peter, from The Art of the Case. That was it. The decision was easy.

The box itself also functions as a watch stand. Under the cushion, there’s a removable insert and a stainless steel extension that allows the watch to be displayed upright inside its case.

https://theartofthecase.com/

https://www.instagram.com/the_2a_artist/

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Documentation and Final Details

All documentation comes inside a Reigi-branded Secrid RFID-protected card holder, made in Europe.
The cards themselves are black aluminum, laser engraved.

Included cards:

• Story
  
  
• The Octagon
  
  
• Signature Series – Tom Aspinall
  
  
• Tom Aspinall – 28th UFC Heavyweight Champion (signed by Tom)
  
  
• Care & Use
  
  
• Warranty
  
  
• House of Reigi – Jyväskylä, Finland
  
  

Reference number: O1-SS-01

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On January 21, 2025, the first Reigi Signature Series – Tom Aspinall watch was delivered to Tom Aspinall in person