Dana White has finally given an ultimatum to the current heavyweight champion Jon Jones to fight Tom Aspinall!
The Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall saga has dragged on for quite a long time. For nineteen months now, since UFC 295, fans have been waiting to see these two heavyweight champions settle their differences inside the octagon. Jones holds the undisputed title while Aspinall carries the interim belt, a situation that usually gets resolved pretty quickly in the UFC.
But Jones has been doing everything possible to avoid this fight, suggesting matchups with everyone from Alex Pereira to Francis Ngannou instead. Meanwhile, Aspinall has been sitting there, even defending his interim belt against Curtis Blaydes. The frustration has reached a boiling point from fans who have started online petitions (over 200,000 signatures) demanding Jones be stripped of his title. The whole situation has become a public relations nightmare for the UFC. Their biggest star is essentially refusing to defend his title against the interim champion. White has been trying to play peacemaker for over a year. But his patience appears to be wearing thinner with each day.
Dana White finally dropped the hammer this week on The Jim Rome Show. He gave Jon Jones and his team a firm deadline to make this fight happen. White made it clear that the UFC won’t wait around forever for Jones to make up his mind about defending his heavyweight title.
“We’ll see how this thing plays out over the next couple of weeks. If we can’t get this fight done, we will move on quickly. I said a couple of weeks. We’ll have answers in the next couple of weeks.”
Those words carry serious weight coming from the UFC CEO. He has historically been willing to work with difficult fighters but clearly has limits to his patience. White’s comments suggest that the UFC has already started developing backup plans for the heavyweight division. The promotion can’t afford to keep one of their most important titles tied up indefinitely. Rumors suggested that Tom Aspinall might be fighting for the undisputed belt against Ciryl Gane, but nothing is official as of yet.
The irony of this entire situation is that Jones’ reputation as the greatest fighter of all time (defended fiercely by Dana White) could actually be damaged more by avoiding Aspinall than by potentially losing to him. Jones has built his career on taking on all challengers and proving his dominance across multiple generations of fighters. But right now, Jones looks like he’s more concerned with protecting his record than proving he’s still the best. Now, White’s two-week ultimatum puts everything on the table. Whether he will take the fight against Aspinall or just call it quits remains to be seen.
(Image Credit: Mark J. Rebilas – Imagn Images)
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