Dana White is sure Jon Jones will fight Tom Aspinall sometime in the future. ‘Bones’, of course, has been nothing but against the prospect of fighting the interim heavyweight champion, shutting down talks of it happening every chance he gets. However, ‘Bones’ has softened on this stance recently and reluctantly admitted he will fight the Englishman. If that is, the UFC pays Jones “f**k you money.”

All of which paints the picture that Jones, after all, isn’t too keen to do the honors. But Dana White believes that is not the case. Instead, the UFC CEO believes ‘the exact opposite’ to be the truth. At least that is what he told Shannon Sharpe and Stephen A. Smith on their ESPN show.

“I’m going to tell you the craziest thing about Jon Jones. I’m the guy that hears all the stuff behind the scenes. All the biggest tough guys, I hear them turning down fights and ‘Oh I don’t want to do this’. You know, behind the scenes Jon Jones is the exact opposite. Jon Jones will fight anybody, he’s not afraid, and he has never said behind the scenes ‘I won’t fight Tom Aspinall’. It’s the exact opposite, yet to the public he makes it seem like he doesn’t want to fight Tom Aspinall,” he said.

The head honcho feels that the New Mexico resident is playing mind games with the fans (and perhaps even Aspinall). After all, ‘Bones’ ducking the interim champ, perhaps due to fear, only to reluctantly take the fight is a much more interesting and headline-generating storyline than him just straightaway agreeing to fight Tom Aspinall.

After all, every UFC fan stands either with or against Aspinall and his quest to fight Jones, which means all those fans will tune in if the fight ever actually happens. And White is absolutely sure of that, even if some are still unconvinced.

Dana White asserts Jon Jones is not afraid to fight Tom Aspinall

Not many fans buy Dana White’s claims about Jon Jones playing 4D chess with the fans over the Aspinall fight. Why? Well because ‘Bones’ isn’t that kind of guy. A Colby Covington or a Chael Sonnen would go the extra mile to instigate drama and controversy with opponents they are going to or want to fight. But Jones has never done that for any of his fights.

His heated feud with Daniel Cormier was quite genuine to the point that the two men still don’t like each other (even though Jones pretends that he does). Jones has always tried to play the good Christian, respectful guy until his shenanigans outside the Octagon made sure that he literally cannot anymore. No one would buy it. No one, except perhaps Dana White.

“And the thing is, Jon Jones is like 37, 38 years old now. Like you, one of you said, you know, he has these huge gaps in between fights. He is not afraid to fight Tom Aspinall. He will fight Tom Aspinall. Not trying to imply he’s afraid, I know [he isn’t]. But the fans do and some of the media does too, because they don’t like Jon,” White told Smith and Sharpe.

Of course, this may just be White playing the role of promoter, and trying to convince people the guy he considers the GOAT actually doesn’t want to fight a young and hungry lion. On the other hand, he may also be right and all of this may just be Jones pretending not to want to fight Aspinall to gin up hype for when he actually does. What do you think about Dana White’s comments about Jon Jones ‘pretending’ like he doesn’t want to fight Aspinall?