The internet is a wild place, as Tom
Aspinall recently learned.
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The
UFC interim heavyweight champion has been involved in a polite
feud with undisputed champ Jon Jones for
a while now. Aspinall recently revealed that his online
back-and-forth has provoked death threats from fans of “Bones.”
“People on the internet are wild,” Aspinall told Lord Ping (h/t MMA Mania). “You have to kind of see it
for what it is. It’s not real life, a lot of it comes from
jealousy. People don’t like to see other people do well,
unfortunately that’s the way of the world. With a lot of love comes
a lot of hate as well. That’s the way the cookie crumbles,
unfortunately.
“I’m human so it affects me sometimes. But I try to just turn a
blind eye to it and just crack on. The internet is a strange place.
I clicked on my message requests by accident the other day and
people are sending me death threats for wanting to fight Jon Jones,
who’s the best in the world and it’s madness. You just think what
the f—k is going on in your life that you want to say that you want
to kill somebody else because they want to fight. It’s
madness.”
Bones was forced out of his scheduled title defense against
Stipe
Miocic at UFC 295 this past November due to a torn pectoral
muscle. A short-notice interim title fight was set up, where
Aspinall knocked out Sergei
Pavlovich in the first round.
Aspinall subsequently called for Jones to be stripped of the title.
However, UFC CEO Dana White confirmed that Jones will remain champ
and fight Miocic upon his return. Aspinall is now open to defending
his interim strap but sees a lack of suitable opponents.
“With the Jon Jones
palaver and all the politics around that, I was thinking maybe
they’d give me some freak show kind of fight against Brock
Lesnar, or maybe at UFC
300 they’d do something a bit out there like Alex
Pereira, but that doesn’t look likely now,” Aspinall said. “I
have absolutely no idea about my next move. I’m kind of waiting
about.
“I absolutely would be ready for UFC 300, I believe now it’s about
three months away and I have been training twice a day since a week
after my last fight,” he continued. “So my body is in good shape
right now. I could easily turn it up a few notches and be ready for
UFC 300. But there isn’t really a realistic opponent. The only
realistic ones would be Pereira or Lesnar and they’re not really
realistic. Everyone else is kind of tied up right now so my hands
are tied.”