Ben Askren is pretty surprised UFC CEO Dana White hasn’t switched gears toward a Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall unification bout rather than Jones vs. Stipe Miocic.
After Jones withdrew due to injury from his heavyweight title defense against Miocic at UFC 295 this past November, Aspinall instead competed on the card, knocking out Sergei Pavlovich in short order to win the interim title. Since then, the bloom has seemingly fallen off of the proverbial rose in terms of fan interest for a Jones vs. Miocic re-booking, especially considering Miocic hasn’t fought since getting brutally knocked out by Francis Ngannou in March 2021. Aspinall continues to compete — he defended his interim belt with a knockout of Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304 — leading many to believe the Englishman is the world’s best heavyweight.
Askren is now left wondering, why isn’t UFC pushing for Jones vs. Aspinall?
“I almost feel like maybe Jon’s got some dirt on Dana or something, because Dana generally would not put up with this type of behavior,” Askren said on Funky & The Champ with Daniel Cormier. “He would say, and this is what the UFC is founded on where boxing [wasn’t], is, ‘We want the best guys to fight. We want to see who the actual best guy is. We don’t want to waste time with shenanigans, we won’t want to pad records to go to 40-0, we don’t do that, that’s what boxing does. In the UFC, we put the best guys in there and see who wins.’
“So the fact that Jon is being — I don’t want to say, [I don’t know] if allowed is the right term, but Dana’s playing along, and letting him and Stipe fight. Stipe is going to be close to four years [since his last fight] by the time they ever fight. ... You have this young interim champion, he’s a beast, just smashes people, and the fact that they won’t put them in there together — and then there’s this good [chance] that Jon beats Stipe and then says, ‘I’m done, I’m gone.’ And then you never get to see [Jones vs. Aspinall].”
Jones has competed just once in the past four years, capturing the vacant heavyweight title against Ciryl Gane at UFC 285 in March 2023.
Askren understands business and putting on the biggest fights possible, but at some point, he argues it has to be about the best two guys in a division competing for a world title.
“Dana almost always presses these issues with the best guys, it’s pretty rare when he hasn’t,” Askren said. “Like Sean [O’Malley] and Merab [Dvalishvili], he’s making that happen. He let Sean fight ‘Chito,’ that was one fight, but now Sean and Merab are fighting.”
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