Despite his comments about retirement, UFC CEO Dana White doesn’t believe Jones will retire without fighting Tom Aspinall.
Heavyweight fighter Jones was set to face Miocic, but the fight had to be rescheduled after the champ suffered an injury. Since the fight was rescheduled, Jones has hinted that it might be his last professional fight.
The comments were quite shocking for fans looking forward to more fights from Jones, including a fight with interim heavyweight champ Tom Aspinall, but Jones hasn’t commented on this. Aspinall has been pretty adamant about his intention of fighting with the heavyweight champion.
Nonetheless, Dana White is positive that Jones will not quit the game without shutting up Aspinall in the octagon.
“Dislike him. Whatever your beef is with Jon Jones, knock yourself out. There’s no way in hell that Jon Jones doesn’t want to fight Aspinall. That I guarantee you.”
“I don’t know about this,” White said. “And it was something that we produced? Are you sure that we produced this? Like Embedded or something?”
“… We’ll find out what happened… Because if that’s true, and that was done and that was something that we produced, then somebody in the company made that decision. That definitely — listen, you know me, if I said we did it, I’d say, ‘Yeah, f*ck him and this is why we did it.’ I know nothing about it, nobody ever asked me about it, and this is the first we’re hearing about it or I would tell you.”
“Jon Jones is doing Jon Jones right now,” White said. “That’s what he does. There is nobody that we’ve ever dealt with, when I tell you is not afraid to fight anybody. It’s Jon Jones… I believe Jon Jones-Aspinall happens if he beats Stipe…”
“We’ll do everything we can to make that fight happen… What fights don’t we make? Other than the Francis thing, what fights don’t we make? You can’t make people fight and we couldn’t make Francis fight. But every other fight we’ve made. We’ve dealt with guys like Brock Lesnar. Think of the biggest stars that have ever been in the sport. We’ve always made the fights.”
Despite White’s comment, Jones has revealed he is only open to fighting Francis Ngannou after Moicic. However, it is believed that this may not occur due to the tension between the UFC and Ngannou. White officially came out to debunk these rumours and said the reason the match never happened and probably never will is because of Ngannou.
“I have zero animosity towards Francis,” White said. “Francis was out of my world a long time ago. [Sean Shelby] and Mick [Maynard] are another story. It’s a long story. [Shelby] did everything he could in his power to make Jon Jones vs Francis. The fight did not happen, and let me tell you what, it wasn’t because of Jon Jones.
“So Jon is a very unique individual to deal with. Jon Jones will fight everybody. Jon Jones was absolutely — he wanted Francis! You saw what happened with Ciryl Gane. He will tell you, like he told us, that he would do the same thing to Francis Ngannou. He wanted that fight so bad.
“And for anybody who thinks — I know the whole internet, ‘Oh Jon Jones!’ that I’m up Jon Jones’s ass, these are f*cking facts. Facts. And since everybody has been such douchebags about this, I’m coming out with a nice little punch in the face for all you f*ckers that think Jon Jones isn’t the greatest of all-time.”
Jones’s retirement comment may not be true, and if this happens, there could be a possible match with Tom Aspinall in the future.
