Skip to main content
2 of 2
added emphasis
Igor Rivin
  • 96.4k
  • 11
  • 153
  • 366

I believe that the answer is NO. If you look at

Gutiérrez, Mauricio A.; Ratcliffe, John G. On the second homotopy group. Quart. J. Math. Oxford Ser. (2) 32 (1981), no. 125, 45–55.

Corollary 3 states that a "reduced 2-complex $K(X; R)$ is aspherical if and only if each element of $R$ is independent and not a proper power."

Now, "reduced" means that there is (a) only one 0-cell (true in your case), and the one cells represent distinct nontrivial elements of $\pi_1(K^1),$ where $K^1$ is the one-skeleton. Again seems to be true under your assumptions. $R$ are the relations (given by attaching maps of the 2-cells, I imagine), "independent" is too complicated to explain here (look at the paper), but in any case, the "not a proper power" condition is easy to violate.

EDIT Actually, independent is not too hard to explain. The definition is: a relator $r$ is independent if, setting $M$ to be the normal closure of $r,$ and $N$ the normal closure of $R - r,$ $M \cap N = [ M, N].$

As @Benjamin points out, above I am answering the complementary question, so to get the example that the OP wants, we need three independent elements in the free group on two generators which are not proper powers.

Igor Rivin
  • 96.4k
  • 11
  • 153
  • 366