Tom Aspinall seems to have absolutely snapped about the fact that Jon Jones doesn’t want to fight him following his UFC 309 clash with Stipe Miocic. However, he doesn’t seem too surprised about the heavyweight champion’s tactic. To support his claims, Aspinall said that ‘Bones’ did the same thing when there was talk about fighting Francis Ngannou while the Cameroonian-French star was still competing under the Dana White-led promotion.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, there was chatter about a potential Jon Jones vs Stipe Miocic fight. However, ‘Bones’ and UFC CEO Dana White couldn’t come to terms due to issues with the payout. With Francis Ngannou, Aspinall knew what Jones would be up against stepping inside the Octagon with the Cameroonian. Incidentally, Jones made his return to the promotion only after ‘The Predator’ vacated his belt and left the UFC. Remembering these key moments, Aspinall made speculations of Jon Jones ducking him, just like he was avoiding Ngannou.

“People are starting to act surprised, ‘Oh, Jon’s a duck. Jon’s a duck’. Jon Jones ducked Francis Ngannou for three years.”, Tom Aspinall stated on his YouTube channel. “Don’t be surprised that this guy always takes fights where he’s at their advantage, and that’s not me getting at Jon. These are the facts of it.”

Tom Aspinall further added, “Jon’s a very touchy guy. And, he likes to be smart about his approach and control the narrative of fans by saying he’s the GOAT, which he’s definitely got a case for.”

Prior to Francis Ngannou‘s triumphant debut at PFL, he spoke to the media about the failed attempt by the UFC to make the Jon Jones fight. Echoing the same sentiment as Tom Aspinall, although not in the same sense, ‘The Predator’ revealed a key detail that had the UFC’s involvement in the super-fight between him and Jones not playing out.

Francis Ngannou claims UFC told him that Jon Jones didn’t want to fight him

A few years ago, when Francis Ngannou was on top of his game, Dana White suggested that Jon Jones consider going down to the middleweight division to avoid fighting ‘The Predator’. Fast forward a few years, after Ngannou departed from the UFC, the CEO claimed that it was the now-PFL champion who didn’t want to do anything with Jon Jones. Ngannou refuted White’s claim by stating that the promotion’s executives always told him that it was the other way around.

“As far as I’m concerned, Jon Jones didn’t want to fight me, according to [the UFC]. So many times we sat down to make the fight and they said, ‘Oh it can’t happen, Jon Jones doesn’t want to fight anymore.'”, said Francis Ngannou before his fight against Renan Ferreira. Moreover, Jon Jones made his return after three years in March 2023, which is just two months after ‘The Predator’ left the company. Could Tom Aspinall be telling the truth about this saga?

As much as there’s chatter about Jon Jones ducking Tom Aspinall now, the UFC 309 headliner against Stipe Miocic is poised to happen. It remains to be seen how ‘Bones’ responds to these fiery shots from Aspinall. Will Jon Jones do the unthinkable and grant Tom Aspinall a much-needed title unification bout? Let us know in the comments below.