Skip to main content

Jon Jones lukewarm on UFC heavyweight contenders, thinks Tom Aspinall can be 'really special'

UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones is open to fighting the next crop of contenders, but it will ultimately come down to the magnitude of potential fights.

If Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) is able to defend his belt against Stipe Miocic at UFC 295 in November and opts not to retire, he has some potentially intriguing opponents on the horizon in Tom Aspinall and Sergei Pavlovich.

Jones admits he’s impressed by what both men are doing in the division, but at 36 and with a long UFC career already behind him, he’s not fighting just for the sake of it. He needs it to be significant, and in his mind, that falls on contenders like Aspinall (13-3 MMA, 6-1 UFC) and Pavlovich (17-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) to bring their public notoriety to a certain level.

“They’re amazing – don’t get me wrong,” Jones said on the OverDogs Podcast. “They’re starching people in the first round. But as I get older, I have to look at it as a business and not just speak out of pride, but speak as my legacy and as a business. If the hardcore fans know who these guys are, that’s great. But at the end of the day I have to fight people that the mainstream public is going to be excited about. Because when you’re in my position, there’s always going to be this new challenge that’s younger than you that everyone wants to see you do it one more time.”

Despite being uncertain about whether they will ever fight, Jones did heap praise on Aspinall, who has been very vocal about his desire to challenge Jones since his recent first-round TKO of Marcin Tybura last month at UFC Fight Night 224.

Jones thinks Aspinall is going to be a factor at heavyweight for years to come. It’s just a matter of whether timing and circumstances will lead to them colliding inside the octagon.

“Tom Aspinall, I think he really has the potential to do something really special in the heavyweight division,” Jones said. “I think he’s going to be hard for the majority of guys to beat. I really do believe that.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 295.



from MMA Junkie https://ift.tt/gDZ6TCu
via IFTTT

Popular posts from this blog

Burmese fighter: Joshua Van details pioneering journey to plant Myanmar's flag on UFC turf

Joshua Van remembers asking his mother why they had to live in Houston. Why couldn’t they just go back home where things were familiar? He was 12 years old at the time, and Van wanted to go back to where he lived the first decade of his life, in Myanmar. Life wasn’t easy for an undersized pre-teen who spoke little English and was picked on during school for both of those attributes. Looking back, the math adds up that he’d become the first Burmese fighter to compete in the UFC. “I was a small kid,” Van recently told MMA Junkie. “From where I come from, you get picked on. It’s kind of like I fight everyday, and I got to the point where I enjoyed fighting. I watched clips on street fights and how to win street fights. I tried it in my next fight and things like that. That’s what got me into my career.” Van grew up one of five siblings in Myanmar, a country ridden with military and political conflict . When things increasingly worsened, Van’s parents decided to move to Malaysia. Van...

Video: Oli Thompson lands devastating first-round knockout punch on Aleksei Oleinik in Russia

Aleksei Oleinik returned to action for the first time since his UFC exit, but things did not go in his favor. In the main event of REN TV Fight Club at Dynamo Volleyball Arena in Moscow, Russia, Oleinik (60-17-1 MMA) faced fellow UFC veteran Oli Thompson in a heavyweight bout. The result was a violent finish that left Oleinik staring up at the lights. Thompson (21-16 MMA) unleashed a crushing right hand that sent Oleinik crashing to the canvas with 35 seconds remaining in the opening round. Check out video of the finish below (via Twitter ): Oli Thompson destroys Alexey Oleynik with a massive right hand in the first round pic.twitter.com/AdWy25dQxR — caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) May 26, 2023 Thompson, 43, returned to the win column for the first time since 2020, snapping a four-fight losing skid. His last victory was also a first-round stoppage; a 23-second knockout of Szymon Bajor at Fight Exclusive Night 28 on June 13, 2020. Oleinik, 45, competed in his final UFC bout in Octo...

Logan Paul, KSI to fight (separately) as part of Misfits Boxing 'The Prime Card'

Logan Paul and KSI will top an upcoming Misfits Boxing card entitled “The Prime Card,” they announced Friday on social media . The event takes place Oct. 14 at AO Arena in Manchester, England and streams on DAZN pay-per-view. Opponents for the two influencers-turned-boxers have not yet been announced. It is unclear if the bouts will be professional or exhibition. Paul, 28, has not competed in a professional boxing match since he fought and lost to  KSI in November 2019. The bout was a rematch of an August 2018 amateur fight which ended in a draw. In June 2021, Paul competed in an exhibition bout against Floyd Mayweather and went all eight rounds in a non-scored bout. While he’s been relatively inactive in boxing, Paul has thrilled fans with his athleticism in intermittent appearances in pro wrestling bouts for WWE. KSI, 30, has competed four times since the pro bout against Paul. All four of those matches were exhibitions. KSI won three of them inside the distance, while a f...