Tom Aspinall believes Jon Jones was praying to lose to Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304 last month.
Englishman Aspinall, the interim UFC heavyweight champion, met Blaydes in the co-main event of the card, successfully defending his title by knocking out the American in the first round.
Jones, who holds the promotion’s undisputed heavyweight title but has not fought since winning the vacant belt with a submission defeat to Ciryl Gane early last year, has not said much about Aspinall’s fight with Blaydes.
Aspinall believes it would have been different if he had lost.
“Jon Jones, he was praying that I would lose that Curtis Blaydes fight — he was praying that I would lose it,” Aspinall told UFC analysts Michael Bisping and Anthony Smith on the Believe You Me podcast. “There’s nowhere you can find him publicly — nowhere — saying he’s going to fight me. It doesn’t exist. I challenge anyone watching this interview to go find a statement, a quote, a video, where Jon Jones says he’s going to fight me after I fought Stipe. It doesn’t exist.”
“We know he’s a little overweight these days. The guy was sitting there [watching my fight] with Cheetos fingers, Doritos on his fingers, with his iPhone in his hand, waiting for me to be knocked out so he can start tweeting about it.
“Since I won that fight, he’s gone completely silent.”
Aspinall believes Jones’ silence will continue until his retirement.
“He’s going to keep me completely silent until he retires because there’s no way he’s going to fight me,” he said. “No way. I’ll retire Jon Jones without even fighting him.”
Typically, the UFC would pit Aspinall and Jones against each other as quickly as possible to unify their heavyweight titles, but in a strange break from protocol, the promotion is determined to pit Jones against 42-year-old former champion Stipe Miocic, who hasn’t fought since a knockout loss to Francis Ngannou in 2021.
The fight is currently not scheduled, but is still in the works, according to the latest update from UFC CEO Dana White.
Aspinall has the utmost respect for the achievements of Jones and Miocic, but can’t help but shake his head at the expected matchup.
“Dana White can say what he wants, those guys are not the best heavyweights in the world right now,” he said. “I’m not saying they haven’t had incredible careers, because I idolize those guys. I want to have a career like that, that’s what I aim to do with my life – what they’ve done – but they’re not the best right now. Right now, they’re definitely not the best, so let’s stop talking about all that.” [expletive] as they are.
