Tom Aspinall knocked out another dangerous opponent with ease. After stopping the boogeyman of the heavyweight division last year in 69 seconds to become the interim champion, ‘Honey Badger’ finished Curtis ‘Razor’ Blaydes in the first minute at UFC 304 last night. Now he is in line to face the winner of Jones-Miocic.

Since the Manchester card, the MMA world has been calling on  Dana White to have undisputed champ Jon Jones skip the 41-year-old Miocic and fight the Englishman to unify the title. Unperturbed by all this noise, ‘Bones’ (and Dana White) are insistent that the two-division champ will fight Stipe Miocic first, despite almost no one being interested in it. This has outraged many, including veteran analyst Luke Thomas who not only thinks that is the wrong move but has turned Dana White into what the UFC CEO hated most and sought to change with the UFC.

Luke Thomas thinks Dana White making a big mistake with Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic

Luke Thomas felt that the reason Dana White and co. were adamant on having Jones fight Miocic was simple: money. The analyst speculated that the UFC believes that fight would make the promotion a lot of cash, and didn’t want to kill the goose that could lay at least one more golden egg.

However, this insistence, Thomas felt, was tantamount to a betrayal and went against what the UFC had promised fans. White, of course, has said that the UFC is the place where the best fight the best, unlike boxing, where there was a lot of ducking and avoiding strong matchups.

“I think internally they at least feel optimistic about the ability for Jon and Stipe to make some cash for the company. But it’s just so bizarre like Dana White has spoken at length over time about like the UFC took what the blueprint of boxing was and did the opposite because they didn’t want to make all the same mistakes,” he said.

But having the interim champion, who is setting fire to the Octagon every time, not being matched up against the undisputed champ over financial considerations, was the exact, often-criticized model prevalent in boxing (popularized by Floyd Mayweather), which fans were tired of.

“And here you now have in their heavyweight division you’ve got this incredible young talent blowing the doors off his opponents and he has to defend an interim title because the guys camped out at the top of it don’t want to give him a shot and no one needs to see the bout that they’re actually making. It’s just crazy it’s like this is boxing. That’s what boxing does in its worst moments,”  the ‘Submission Radio’ host said on his show on YouTube. To prove his point, he gave an example from the real world.

Jones-Miocic is exactly like Canelo-Berlanga according to Thomas

In fact, Thomas compared Jones fighting Miocic to what boxing superstar Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez was doing at the moment. The Mexican has been ducking his mandatory challenger, the ever-dangerous David Benavidez, choosing to pass him over for less dangerous opponents. In fact, on September 14 (the same date as UFC 306), Alvarez will face Edgar Berlanga in Las Vegas over Benavidez, since the former is an easier matchup for ‘Canelo’.

The analyst felt that this is exactly what Jon Jones and the UFC were themselves doing, with Berlanga being Miocic and the deserving Benavidez being Tom Aspinall in this analogy. Like ‘Canelo’-Berlanga, Thomas felt that Jones-Miocic wasn’t going to be an exciting matchup that fans would salivate over like Jones-Aspinall.

Miocic, although considered the greatest heavyweight by many, is 41, and last fought two years ago (where he suffered a knockout loss). He is almost certainly at the end of his rope, therefore not expected to be much of a challenge for ‘Bones’.

“[It’s] like what Canelo is doing against Edgar Berlanga… He’s fighting Berlanga because it’s kind of an easy pickings fight… You have to respect what Canelo has done you have to respect what Jon has done. But like what is the value of this particular fight [Jones-Miocic]? Feels like a complete waste of time now,” he added.

Aspinall, of course, is all in and desperately wants the smoke with Jones. After the Englishman’s UFC 304 victory, the Englishman straight up told Jones that while he had nothing personal against him, “I just think I’m better than you,” and that “I know I can beat you in a fight.” 

Jones, too, responded with a cryptic tweet, about “supply and demand” but didn’t address Aspinall’s callout. This, some think, is because Jones also knows what Aspinall knows and said in his UFC 304 post-fight interview. That may be the reason Jones could retire right after his Miocic fight. Unless Dana White and co. make Jones fight Aspinall next.