UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones’ coach Brandon Gibson is confident his fighter would take care of business inside the octagon against interim champ Tom Aspinall.
Gibson has been alongside Jones (28-1 MMA, 22-1 UFC) for the entirety of Jones’ run atop two divisions in the UFC. From their perspective, Jones, 37, is done showing and proving. Now, it’s about getting the most out of the game before calling it a career. According to Gibson, it has nothing to do with Jones being a “duck” and avoiding a matchup against Aspinall.
“I think it’s about timing,” Gibson told Din Thomas and Alan Jouban on SiriusXM Fight Nation. “I think it’s about getting the most out of this fight game. I’ve been in it for a long time, as I know you guys have, and it’s not always a fair game. People don’t always get what they deserve in this game.
“I think Jon’s in a powerful position right now to really hold the cards in his favor and make sure that he gets out of it what he wants.”
Year after year, there’s another contender who pops up as a legitimate threat to Jones’ title. Gibson believes Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) is not too different from every challenger who tried and failed to knock Jones off in the past.
Despite Jones stating he has a higher interest in facing light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira over a title unification bout against Aspinall, Gibson says that has nothing to do with worrying about how that fight would play out. Even with limited game film on Aspinall, Gibson is confident Jones would win the fight, it just has to make sense for them from a business perspective.
“I think the fans want that from a lineal standpoint,” Gibson said. “You want to see the belt get passed, not just a belt get vacated. But I always tell Jon like, ‘Dude, you don’t owe anybody anything.’ We owed Stipe Miocic and the UFC that night on Nov. 16. That’s what we owed. We’ll see if negotiations can get done right, but Jon’s not ducking anybody.
“I actually think Jon is a tough matchup for Tom Aspinall. Obviously, we haven’t seen Tom with an average fight time of two and a half minutes – we haven’t see much out of Tom, but that’s also a positive on our part. Jon is great at taking champion-level caliber fighters into deep waters. Jon is great in that fourth round and that fifth round. It’s not a matchup that scares us at all. It’s a matter of what’s best for Jon and his family.”
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This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC champ Jon Jones’ coach brushes off Tom Aspinall as a challenge
