The ongoing feud between Tom Aspinall and Jon Jones is only adding hype to the prospect of their hopeful future duel. In the words of UFC CEO Dana White, the heavyweight title unification bout would “probably be the biggest fight we’ve ever done.”
While that quote is promoter hyperbole, Jones vs. Aspinall would undeniably be a massive championship tilt, and both fighters have done their parts, driving fan interest in unique ways. That’s particularly true with the heavyweight champion Jones, who has magnified the matchup with his repeated denial of interest in fighting Aspinall.
Ahead of UFC 309 this past Saturday, Jones explained his reasons for not wanting to fight Aspinall — one of which included Aspinall simply being, in his mind, “an a**hole.”
“Call me whatever you want, bro. He doesn’t know me,” Aspinall responded Monday on Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “I couldn’t care less what he thinks. Or anybody else for that matter. I’m not bothered unless I know you personally. If you know me personally and you think I’m an a**hole, then yeah, I’m going to be a bit pissed off about it. But Jon Jones calling me an a**hole? Whatever.”
Jones, 37, is in the twilight of his illustrious career and has consistently proclaimed how important his legacy is to him at this stage. In doing so, Jones has targeted UFC light heavyweight king Alex Pereira as the primary fight that interests him. That has left interim heavyweight champ Aspinall on the outside looking in.
Jones didn’t miss a beat in UFC 309’s main event after his extended absence, dominating 42-year-old former two-time champion Stipe Miocic over three rounds before downing him for good with a violent spinning back kick to the body. The performance was vintage Jones, tearing Miocic apart on the ground with his wrestling and lethal elbow strikes before picking the Ohio native apart on the feet.
Film study and in-cage craftiness have always arguably been among Jones’ best assets. As a fellow student of the game, Aspinall believes that’s where a clash with Jones hinges.
“One of Jon Jones’ biggest advantages that he has over everybody is that he’s a tape studier, as am I,” Aspinall said. “I’m a massive tape studier. I watch my opponents, my coaches watch my opponents, pick up on the tendencies, pick up on what they like, what they don’t like, what they’re good at, when they’re tired, what tires them out, how they’re getting up off the bottom, how’s their defense when you throw this shot, etc.
“He loves to study opponents like this. He has no chance of doing that with me because my average fight time is the shortest in UFC history at two minutes and two seconds over 10 fights. That’s something that keeps him up at night, that will keep him up at night, for sure. I am a massive, massive question mark for him. I know a lot of his game. He’s got a lot of Octagon time over a lot of years. I’ve got next to nothing. There’s next to no footage of me out there besides me doing anything apart from bouncing peoples’ heads off the canvas, and he has no idea what to prepare for, and that is fantastic for me.”
The 31-year-old England native has been about as impressive as any fighter could hope to be in their first four years in the Octagon. In the worldwide discussion for best heavyweight, it’s a three-dog race in many peoples’ books, and Aspinall is a fair choice as No. 1.
Future odds for Jones vs. Aspinall currently favor Aspinall to become the first man to defeat Jones since Matt Hamill’s 2009 disqualification win. Aspinall believes Jones is well aware of all this and can’t stand it.
“My existence hurts his feelings a lot,” Aspinall said. “To the contrary of what he says, I ain’t never been an a**hole to him. But yeah, we got a bit of banter with this duck thing going. Oh, that’s so offensive. You know what I mean? He’s going to be offended by a duck emoji here and there. Come on, Jon. Stop being so sensitive, bro.
“He’s offended that somewhere deep in his mind and deep in his soul, he knows I can bounce his head off the canvas. He knows it.”
Aspinall’s knockout of Curtis Blaydes in July was always the plan to be Aspinall’s lone interim title defense. It’s been undisputed or bust afterward, and he’s confident it happens in one form or another.
Jones doesn’t have to be the opponent for the budding star. That name on his mantle would be nice, but for Aspinall, it’s about the undisputed championship label and the “real” belt, despite being the true champion in most of the community’s eyes. Even if Miocic pulled off the upset and beat Jones at UFC 309, that matchup would have then been the target.
Regarding Jones vs. Miocic, Aspinall didn’t see anything special from the all-time great “Bones.”
“As an analyst, I think what Jon Jones did was, as the Americans say, it was by design,” Aspinall said. “Technical, Jon Jones standard style. Barring a couple of things, and I’m speaking as an analyst but also as a potential future opponent here, I want to keep this to myself, but there was definitely a few things that I saw that I could capitalize on. But that’s just me speaking for myself. Some little things that surprised me.
“Jon Jones did exactly what Jon Jones was supposed to do. Jon Jones did Jon Jones things. He’s going out there to win. Fantastic tactical performance as always by Jon Jones. Like I say, by design, standard procedure Jon Jones.
“Stipe, on the other hand, he — I don’t want to say anything bad about Stipe because I respect everything that Stipe has done,” he continued. “I respect him as a human being, I respect him as a champion, I respect him as a fighter. But 42-year-old Stipe, he just didn’t have the legs anymore. Simple as that, and that’s kind of a nice plain way to put it. He had too many miles on the clock to even compete, really, at that level with Jon Jones. Jon Jones is just way fresher than him. He just doesn’t have the athletic ability anymore to compete at that level anymore, unfortunately.”
Like Jones, Miocic entered the Octagon for the first time after an extended layoff. Miocic hadn’t competed since suffering a brutal second-round knockout against Francis Ngannou in early 2021.
Plenty has already been made about how Miocic performed and whether or not all the factors showed themselves on fight night. Between his age and Jones’ performance, Aspinall doesn’t weigh one heavier.
“I ain’t taking away from what Jon did,” Aspinall said. “Jon’s brilliant at MMA. He’s one of the best to ever do it. It would have been a lot better for Stipe if he wasn’t 42 years old coming off a knockout loss four years ago, but I’m not taking away from what Jon did. Don’t get that twisted. Jon did very, very well, and he did what he had to do. You can’t take that away from him. He did everything perfect. Stipe made it very easy for him, but that’s just the circumstances that Stipe’s under at this point in his career and life.”
Although he won’t sideline himself as long as Michael Chandler did for Conor McGregor, Aspinall currently sits idle alongside the rest of the world waiting for his hopeful undisputed title shot. The more time he gets to prepare, the more information he downloads for Jones. UFC 309 was a great addition to his mental notebook as the first look he got at “Bones” in person.
“If you’ve only watched fights on TV before or you’ve only watched fights live before, it’s way different,” Aspinall said. “I was literally in the best seat in the house. I really, really got to see what Jon Jones operates like at a close distance. And for me, as a future opponent, that was some information that was very, very interesting to me, and I enjoyed it. It was good.
“The biggest thing that I can take away and that everybody else [can], I know people are very fickle. I see people saying, ‘There’s no way that Jon could beat Tom at this point in his career.’ Then Jon goes and beats a really, really old and beat-up Stipe and there’s no way that I can win now. It’s crazy what people are like in this MMA game.
“I think the main thing that we can take away is, me right now at 31 years old, and Stipe right now at 42 years old coming off a big layoff — not even in the same stratosphere,” he concluded. “That’s what I can say about it. That’s no disrespect to anybody. But that’s the truth of it right now.”
