UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall opened up on the Jon Jones title fight falling through.
Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) never got his desired title-unification bout with Jones (28-1 MMA, 22-1 UFC), leaving him inactive since July 2024. Jones eventually retired and relinquished his heavyweight title in June, leading to Aspinall being promoted from interim champ to undisputed champ.
He was compared to Michael Chandler waiting for Conor McGregor, but Aspinall dismissed the notion that he hasn’t had a date to work toward.
“I mean, that isn’t entirely accurate,” Aspinall told TNT Sports. “Now this is an exclusive coming live on TNT Sports, but there were a lot of times when the UFC would tell me, right, ‘The Jon Jones fight is happening in three months’ for example. So we’d start the training camp, the intensity would up and then the date would get moved.
“That happened like three or four times and then eventually he retired. So it wasn’t like I was literally sat waiting for the full year. I did think that the fight was going to come. Everyone was saying, ‘Why are you waiting?’ I wasn’t waiting. I was getting told that the fight was happening, so there was nothing I could really do. My hands were completely tied completely by the UFC.”
Aspinall makes his first heavyweight title defense against former interim champion Ciryl Gane (13-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) in the UFC 321 main event on Oct. 25 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi.
