Tom Aspinall is tired of waiting on the sidelines.
The Briton, the UFC’s interim heavyweight champion since November 2023, has declared himself as the division’s true champion as he continues to draw a blank in his dogged pursuit of Jon Jones, who Aspinall now maintains has permanently stepped away from the sport after fighting just twice in the UFC cage since February 2020.
“Jon’s retired,” Aspinall said to Daniel Cormier and Chael Sonnen on their Good Guy/Bad Guy podcast, as reported by MMA Fighting.
“What are you talking about? You guys don’t follow Jon on social media? The guy is living his best life,” Aspinall added. “He’s had a fantastic career, we all know. We know Jon’s a religious man, so I want to say God bless him moving forward, what he does in his life and his career, and we move on. We move on. I’m the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. I’m ready to take on all comers, get this division moving again. Us guys have been waiting around too long.
“The guys, contenders are getting sick of it, everybody’s getting sick of it, even the fans are getting sick of it. Jon’s retired and it’s time that we move on.”
Aspinall’s declaration represents a new tactic in his pursuit of clarity atop the UFC heavyweight division. So far, publicly at least, Jones has yet to make any declarative statements as to his fighting future. However, he did tell fans in an online Q&A recently that he has “communicated” his status to the UFC brass and noted that he was surprised that this news had not yet filtered out to fan level.
Previously, Jones has expressed a desire to participate in so-called ‘legacy fights’ with the likes of former 205-pound champion Alex Pereira, rather than Aspinall — the clear contender for his next fight.
For his part, UFC boss Dana White has stated that he is “100 percent” confident that a Jones-Aspinall fight can be confirmed this year, adding that such a bout would clearly be the biggest heavyweight clash in UFC history.
“If one guy is thinking about retiring, he’s retired,” Aspinall added. “I ain’t thinking about retiring. I’m thinking about getting this division active, making the heavyweight division great again, getting these big fights in, fighting these contenders who are sat on the sidelines waiting for over a year at this point. I’m here to fight, man.”
As for who else Aspinall might fight in the coming months, he said: “It doesn’t matter who it is. Ciryl Gane, Volkov rematch, Almeida, Derrick Lewis, Brock Lesnar, whoever it is, I don’t care. I want to fight everybody, and I want to fight as much as possible, get some excitement back in this division. Let’s not talk about Jon Jones anymore. All the best, the guy’s living his best life. Full respect to him, wish him all the best in the future, he deserves all the money and success that he gets. I’m the active guy, I’m going to fight somebody, and that’s going to be announced pretty soon.”
