Dana White has slightly altered his stance on the
Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight title picture.
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Heavyweight champ Jon Jones
(27-1) was scheduled to defend his strap against former champ
Stipe
Miocic (20-4) at UFC 295 last month but was forced out due to
an injury. The Las Vegas-based promotion then swiftly put together
a short-notice interim title fight where Tom
Aspinall (14-3) shocked the world with a Round 1 knockout of
Sergei
Pavlovich (18-2).
White subsequently said that Aspinall would go to fight the winner
of Jones vs. Miocic in a title unification bout despite the
Englishman’s call to strip “Bones” of the title. However, the UFC
head honcho has now seemingly altered course, hinting at Aspinall
potentially defending his interim strap while awaiting Jones’
return.
“Aspinall could possibly fight again,” White
told TNT Sports. “I don’t know. We’ll see how this plays out
going into the next year, but Jones and Stipe, the fight, they both
deserve it. Jon Jones got
injured. There’s nothing he can do about it. We’ll see what happens
in 2024. If Aspinall wants to fight before that fight happens, why
not? Why not let him defend it? We’ll figure it out.
“If you look at what Stipe has accomplished in this sport, what
he’s done, where he’s at in his career, he wants the Jon Jones
fight, and I get it,” White added. “Arguably the greatest
heavyweight of all time vs. the greatest mixed martial artist of
all time. He wants that fight, it’s a big legacy fight for both
guys. He wants Jones—and Jones wants Stipe. While Jon Jones is
injured, if [Aspinall] wants to defend the title, we’d absolutely
do it.”
While No. 7 ranked Jailton
Almeida had called for an interim title shot against Aspinall,
he has now been booked against No. 5 ranked Curtis
Blaydes for UFC 299 in March. With Pavlovich and Miocic
occupying the No. 3 and 4 spots respectively, second-ranked
Ciryl
Gane appears to be the likely matchup for Aspinall for a
potential interim title defense.