“It is a crazy situation. But there’s a lot of politics in the UFC at the top levels. And it’s just out of my hands, so there’s nothing I can really do about it.” Tom Aspinall said, expressing frustration with the inactivity once again. As we all know, his future regarding the fight against Jon Jones remains in a state of uncertainty. While Jones kept delaying the matchup and stopped the heavyweight division’s forward movement, Aspinall was rumored to defend his interim title once again. But now, it seems like the Brit’s frustration has reached Dana White as well.
The UFC head honcho recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show, where a discussion about Jones vs. Aspinall was inevitable. Still, the 55-year-old didn’t shy away from praising the heavyweight champion. He said, “Jon Jones has been an interesting human being to deal with since the day he got here. But I will say this about him: you would never hear me out talking about he’s the GOAT, he’s the this and he’s the that, if Jon Jones didn’t want to fight people.”
There were some troubles regarding Jones’ battle against Chael Sonnen back in 2012. Sonnen was booked against Jones as a last-minute replacement for Dan Henderson at UFC 151. But ‘Bones’ refused to accept Sonnen as a replacement, which resulted in the UFC head honcho scrapping the card altogether—the first (out of 6) in company history. “So this is probably one of my all-time lows. For the first time in 11 years, we’re going to cancel an event. The one thing that I never thought in a million years would happen happened,” said a then-visibly frustrated Dana White. Of course, Sonnen and Jones were booked for UFC 159, the following year, after coaching season 17 of The Ultimate Fighter.
But the blame for the last-minute pullout at UFC 151 was all on Jones’ coach. According to White, the cancellation had nothing to do with ‘Bones’. He claimed that Jones’ tendency to never refuse a fight is what impresses him. He said, “Jon Jones has never, ever said, ‘I’m afraid to fight this guy,’ or ‘I don’t like this fight for me,’ or any of that stuff… Jon Jones has never turned down an opponent here or been afraid to fight anybody.”
However, things seem a lot different with Aspinall (rightfully) demanding to fight ‘Bones’. According to White, the heavyweight champion initially accepted the match up, but later began to avoid it altogether. And now, White seems to be approaching his limit. He provided the world with a deadline and said, “We’ll see how this thing plays out over the next couple of weeks. If we can’t get this fight done, we’ll move on quickly. … We’ll have answers in the next couple weeks.”
| Dana White provides a fresh update on Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall, via @jimrome:
“We’ll see how this thing plays out over the next couple weeks, but if we can’t get this fight done, we’ll move on quickly. We’ll have answers in the next couple weeks.” pic.twitter.com/7ZXW8eh1dU
— MMA Orbit (@mma_orbit) June 17, 2025
And the MMA world has been reacting in exactly the manner you’d imagine—thrashing Jones, and Dana White for his unconditional support to the undisputed heavyweight champion. Jones vs. Aspinall is indeed something the world desperately wants to see and get done with. But what about a clash between Jones and Francis Ngannou. That’s a superfight that ‘Bones’ apparently doesn’t want to let go. But what does White think of the matchup?
Dana White opens up on Jon Jones vs. Francis Ngannou and takes a stance for Tom Aspinall
Not too long ago, the UFC heavyweight champion claimed that the PFL heavyweight champion was still interested in fighting him. Although Ngannou asked Jones to focus on UFC while he handled PFL, ‘Bones’ believes that a super fight against ‘The Predator’ should be the next big thing. But when asked by a reporter to choose between Ngannou and Aspinall, the 37-year-old simply shared one condition. He said, “Whoever comes to Dirty Boxing.”
But, as well know, White won’t let Ngannou return to fight Jones. At the UFC 316 press conference, the UFC CEO claimed, “It’s Aspinall’s fight. We’ve been talking to this kid forever about it. You can’t make people fight. If Jon doesn’t want to fight, we can’t make him fight. We can try to make him fight. We can throw things at him that inspire him to want to fight. But we’ll figure it out. I don’t have Ngannou under contract and Aspinall is the guy!”
Aspinall has stayed inactive for almost a year now, with his last win against Curtis Blaydes being an event in July 2024. To make things worse, Jones even asked the UFC for a 180-day break. He went to Thailand to shoot the ALF Reality Show. But now that he’s back from Thailand, we can expect him to give a response within the speculated time given by White. If not, well, the petition to strip Jones might spring into action.
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