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Tom Aspinall has his heart set on a fight with Jon Jones.
After a triumphant performance against Sergei Pavlovich in the co-main event of UFC 295 on Saturday, Aspinall now holds an interim heavyweight title, a belt created in the absence of undisputed champion Jon Jones. Jones and Stipe Miocic were scheduled to fight at UFC 295, but Jones was forced to withdraw due to an injury, and Aspinall vs. Pavlovich was booked as a replacement fight.
A unification bout between Aspinall and Jones makes perfect sense, except for the fact that both Jones and Miocic have insisted their next fight be against each other. Aspinall is hopeful that his first-round knockout of Pavlovich is enough to make the UFC consider a different plan.
“Right now I’m going to enjoy tonight,” Aspinall said at the evening’s post-fight press conference when asked what’s next for him. “But I think we should do Tom Aspinall vs. Jon Jones in Manchester. That is something special, and I’m sure the UFC are going to be on board with that. That would be special.”
“Absolutely incredible also,” Aspinall responded to the suggestion that they fight in London’s Wembley Stadium instead. “It doesn’t have to be Manchester, but I think that if we do the greatest fighter of all time versus the U.K. heavyweight champion of the UFC in the U.K., that would be absolutely insane. Let’s do it, absolutely.”
Aspinall’s title win caps off a brilliant comeback campaign, which began this past July when he returned from a knee injury to finish Marcin Tybura in 73 seconds. He topped that performance against Pavlovich, putting the hard-hitting Russian down in 69 seconds. His UFC record now stands at 7-1, with all of those wins coming by way of knockout or submission.
Ideally, Aspinall would not want to wait a whole year for Jones to come back from injury and settle his business with Miocic, but he said fighting Jones remains his primary goal. He’s hopeful his UFC 295 performance convinces Jones to put off retirement for at least one more fight.
“How could it not?” Aspinall said. “I don’t think I did much wrong for him to be like, ‘That’s an easy fight.’ I think if I hit anybody square in the face they’re going to go to sleep, simple as that. Jon knows that, and that’s no disrespect to Jon, I absolutely love Jon, he’s one of my favorite fighters of all time, I absolutely look up to him. But I want to fight him, and I think I can win.”
Jones was definitely watching Aspinall’s latest win, and he took to Twitter shortly afterward to offer Aspinall a compliment.
Tom congratulations on the interim heavyweight championship belt! That was an awesome performance!
— BONY (@JonnyBones) November 12, 2023
“Tom, congratulations on the interim heavyweight championship belt,” Jones wrote. “That was an awesome performance.”
The comments were brought to Aspinall’s attention during his post-event scrum, and he was encouraged further to call for a fight with one of his idols.
“I’ve seen Jon talking nice stuff about me on a podcast as well, it’s really nice,” Aspinall said. “Obviously, it’s always nice to hear nice things about you, but from someone like that who I massively look up to, even more so.
“Thank you, Jon, and just give me the opportunity. Let me do it. Give me my dream fight. Why not? I’ve just achieved my dream now. Give me my dream fight, let me fight for my legacy now, please.”
Former interim champion Ciryl Gane was also quick to offer his congratulations to Aspinall via social media, but he took the extra step of calling Aspinall out.
Congratulations, Tom.
You are now the champion and become the one being pursued, and I am the hunter. See you soon
— Ciryl Gane (@ciryl_gane) November 12, 2023
It’s a matchup that Aspinall previously expressed interest in. Now that he’s the one holding gold, he has other ideas for who Gane should fight.
“That’s interesting after I just called him out, went to France, and he turned the fight down,” Aspinall said. “I think he should fight [Jailton] Almeida. I think them guys should fight each other first and see what happens there.”
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