The undisputed heavyweight champion, Jon Jones, is finally set to make his big return to Madison Square Garden against Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 in a matter of days after the initial date of his first heavyweight title defense got scrapped because of an injury. There’s a lot of anticipation among fans to see ‘Bones’ back in action. However, the MMA fandom also wants to see the UFC heavyweight champion defend his belt against the interim heavyweight champion. A lot of talk ensued between both contenders but the matchup doesn’t look likely to happen. Nevertheless, that didn’t deter Tom Aspinall from questioning Jones’s championship status.

The British UFC star recently had an interview where he touched upon the undisputed heavyweight title not having been defended for over a long time. Given that he recently defeated Curtis Blaydes in his interim title defense, Aspinall believes that Jon Jones’s current reign as a champion is not as valid as his reign. He also claimed that he’s better than the supposed greatest of all time.

“I think Jon Jones is like the paper champ, in my opinion,” the 31-year-old stated on the ‘VechtersBazen’ podcast.

“Usually, the interim champ is like a champ waiting for the undisputed champ. But when the undisputed champ is kind of avoiding the fight with the interim champ and the interim champ’s defending, I think it’s difficult to say right now that I’m not the best in the world,” said Aspinall. On the other hand, Tom Aspinall, during the podcast, also claimed that he wasn’t trying to put Jon Jones down and compete with his legacy.

In all honesty, he just wants to be recognized as the best heavyweight MMA fighter in the entire world.

Tom Aspinall isn’t “bothered” about Jon Jones’s legacy

The self-proclaimed ‘Honey Badger’ mentioned how he had gone back and forth with Jon Jones on the internet, where he claimed to have made a bigger and better impact in MMA than Tom Aspinall. But that’s not even what he’s looking to do. While agreeing with Jones that he’s indeed the best, the British star just wants the MMA community to recognize what he’s done and achieved inside the Octagon that helped him prove and make his case to be the best heavyweight fighter today.

“When me and Jon Jones talk, he says stuff online like, ‘My legacy is always gonna be better [than yours].’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, it is.’ I’m not bothered about legacy, I just feel like I’m the best heavyweight in the world and I want people to recognize it. That’s it! I don’t want to be the greatest heavyweight ever or anything like. I’m not bothered,” Tom Aspinall added.

Despite facing challenges in trying to bag that big-time fight against Jon Jones, Tom Aspinall claims he’s not opposed to butt heads with any other contender that the UFC puts in front of him for his next title defense. But the real question is – will Aspinall and Jones ever fight to unify the titles? Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below.