Jon Jones is in hot water ahead of his supposed comeback to the promotion. He has been on a hiatus for over a year with his last fight against Stipe Miocic at UFC 295 being canceled due to a pectoral injury. Now, his comeback is again on hold because of a legal problem with the drug testing academy of UFC. The champion has been charged with two misdemeanors against an agent from the UFC’s anti-doping partners at Drug Free Sport in March this year. Amid the troubles, Jones has also left the UFC community unimpressed with his eagerness to fight Miocic and not the interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall whenever he makes a comeback to the octagon.

While the fans are not happy with Jones’ decision, Curtis Blaydes, who is getting a shot at Aspinall later this month at UFC 304 offered an interesting take on Jon Jones’ choice of opponent for his heavyweight title defense.

How does Curtis Blaydes feel about Jon Jones?

A lot of UFC analysts including the fans believe that Jon Jones is scared of facing Tom Aspinall as the latter might outshine him and take away the title of UFC Heavyweight Champion. However, Blaydes doesn’t echo the same sentiments as during a recent interaction, he reckoned how Jones might be apprehensive but not scared to fight Aspinall. 

During the ESPN MMA interview with Andreas Hale, he said, “John seems, I don’t want to say scared but he seems apprehensive about the prospect of potentially fighting Tom Aspinall.  I would be a little, a little gassed up also nothing wrong with that, you have to have that mind.”

This is not the first time that Blaydes has candidly given his opinion about the much-hyped Aspinall vs Jones bout as a few days back during the UFC ESPN 59, he mentioned how the match-up would happen in a perfect world but not in the real world. “The UFC’s had a lot of weird, wonky matchups over the years. … It’s normal for the UFC. I’m not like, ‘Oh my God.’ It’s normal,” claimed the 33-year-old.

As far as his fight with the interim champion is concerned, Blaydes is bothered only about one thing and that is the timing of the fight. Despite the UFC 304 taking place in the UK, the promotion has planned to start the main card at 3 am as per UK time to cater to their fans in the United States. The 33-year-old hasn’t been enthusiastic about the development and he recently took a dig at the UFC as well by claiming that they would never give the same treatment to Conor McGregor. 

Meanwhile, it seems like Jones has also been snubbed by Dana White as the CEO who usually doesn’t shy away from praising the fighter didn’t take his name in a crucial list. 

Dana White leaves out Jon Jones

The UFC CEO had declared Bones as the best P4P fighter of all time however when it came to a list of his favorite fighters, Jones did not make the cut. While conversing with Shaquille O’Neal on his podcast, the UFC boss named Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor among his favorite fighters in the promotion leaving out Jones.

Interestingly, McGregor was supposed to make a comeback at UFC 303 and again got injured so had to withdraw. Dana White has not given another date for him yet but here ‘Mystic Mac’ is his favorite fighter. The host asked White why he did not select Jones and he explained that Jones was a good fighter but a bad man to do business with.

So, the favorite fighter list included those who were both good fighters and good business partners. White added, “Okay, listen, I, and that’s the thing about when I talk about Jon Jones, it’s not like I’m trying to say, you know, these other people that I had great relationships with are the greatest of all time. Jon Jones and I have not had a great relationship as far as business goes, but that doesn’t, you know, twist my judgment. He is the greatest combat fighter of all time, period. End of story. There’s not even an argument.”

On the business front, McGregor takes the seat because he is the easiest to do business with according to White. Maybe this is why the fighter has successful businesses outside UFC as well. On top of that the legal allegation and trial against Jones have complicated things more. While all this fiasco is happening, do you think Jones will fight Aspinall in the future? Drop your views in the comments below.