Tom Aspinall is brushing off UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones’ public interest in a potential fight with Alex Pereira.
Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) called a fight against light heavyweight champion Pereira (10-2 MMA, 7-1 UFC) the biggest in MMA history and went on to argue why Pereira is a much more lucrative fight than interim heavyweight champ Aspinall. Jones’ return fight will come against Stipe Miocic, not a title-unifier vs. Aspinall.
Aspinall (14-3 MMA, 7-1 UFC) doesn’t see a need to address Jones unless he’s going to fight him, which he thinks is highly unlikely at this point.
“If we can get old mate Jon to ever sign a contract with my name on the other side of the contract, I’ll talk about him for hours on this show – hours,” Aspinall told TNT Sports. “But right now the guy is playing games again, trying to convince the public what he wants and what he doesn’t want.
“Which he does really, really well. As I said, we can chat about Jon if and when he ever signs a contract with my name on the other side of it because right now, let’s be honest, it’s not looking very likely.”
Aspinall is expected to defend his interim title at UFC 304 on July 27 in Manchester, but he doesn’t know against whom yet.
“The last I knew, it was going to get announced this weekend (at UFC 301), and obviously that’s been and gone now,” Aspinall said. “I don’t know. Right now I have no idea what’s going on. I wish I could come on the show, I wish I could announce on social media, I wish I could start dragging traffic that way, but right now I have no idea. I’m just getting myself prepared for that date. As far as opponents and stuff like that, I don’t know what’s going on right now.”
