Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall, a fight that may not happen anytime soon but is certainly an exciting prospect for most UFC fans. Jones is currently out and away from the Octagon after his devastating pectoral injury that he endured during training.
At the moment, his title fight against Stipe Miocic to defend his heavyweight title hangs in limbo as Jones awaits full recovery. However, the interim heavyweight champion, Tom Aspinall has been calling for a Jones fight for some time now. Will that ever come across? According to Jones, his only priority is Miocic for now.
Tom Aspinall recently appeared on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour Show and spoke up about his encounter with Jon Jones where Jones was seen brushing Aspinall’s hand away from his shoulder. “Yeah we were both doing meet and greets but we were like 20 meters away from each other the whole time and then I was like I can’t just leave without doing something like saying hello do you know what I mean?” Aspinall said.
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“I just want to go and say hello but his manager didn’t want me to go over.” Clearly, the interaction was unplanned and in the video, Aspinall could be heard asking for a face-off picture which Jones declined swiftly and the two went for a normal picture instead.
Is Jon Jones trying to not fight the heavyweight fighter? It would stand to reason for ‘Bones’ to focus on Miocic for now since it is something that has already been planned. While he has previously claimed that he can fight Aspinall and beat him, it seems to be just something he hasn’t planned on doing yet. Either way, some fans are convinced that Jones is ducking the English fighter.
Fans accuse Jon Jones of ducking Tom Aspinall
Jon Jones was already teasing retirement before he got injured ahead of the Miocic bout. That puts him in a perilous situation if he were to continue with his career at the age that he’s in. The bout with Aspinall would still give him a great fight, but would it be reasonable for him to do it after defeating Miocic? Maybe, this is the reason why fans are wondering if Jones is all about avoiding Aspinall.
“Jon’s ducking Tom like he ducked Francis it’s sad to see”
Some believe that the division is being kept on hold.
“Jones fans defending him stalling the division and wanting to fight old man Stipe is wild…”
Others saw him at the end of his line.
“Jones’s career is basically over”
Some fans believed Jones isn’t quite there to fight Aspinall at all.
“It would be a good fight but Jones is mentally out of the game besides a win over stipe. I don’t think he cares about fighting a bunch of guys at HW unless it truely makes sense for his legacy. For a HW fight sure it makes sense, for a legacy fight it doesn’t.”
“jones fans are terrified of Aspinall fighting him”
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These fans saw Tom Aspinall as a problem for Jon Jones.
“Aspinall is a problem… big with fast hands and well rounded”
“Tom is just to big for Jones it will be like Jon fighting middle weights his whole career and dominating them . That’s what Tom will do to him”
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Many fans have sided with Tom Aspinall on this one as they analyze Jones’ issues with competing against the heavyweight. For now, the champ has his eyes set on Miocic, and only once that fight is over will we know if he will go against Aspinall. What are your thoughts on the situation?