Tom Aspinall by no means cared about preventing Jon Jones. He simply needed what was coming to him.
Ultimately, Aspinall did precisely what he stated he would do a yr in the past — power Jones to retire with out ever preventing him. ‘Bones’ walked away from the game in June, bringing an finish to a 17-year run with the Final Combating Championship.
Because of this, Aspinall was promoted from interim to undisputed champion. It’s definitely not the way in which that he needed to win the belt, however the Brit made it clear that the person standing in entrance of him was by no means the problem. He simply needed a possibility to show himself as the perfect heavyweight on the planet.
“I used to be by no means truly chasing Jon,” Aspinall stated in an interview with the UFC. “I used to be chasing the heavyweight title all alongside. The opponent—the man standing throughout from me—by no means mattered. It by no means has mattered. It by no means will matter. What was necessary to me was being the perfect on the planet.”
After losing the higher a part of a yr ready for Jon Jones to signal on the dotted line, Aspinall is able to get again to enterprise and be one thing the UFC hasn’t seen in a very long time — an lively heavyweight champion.
Aspinall is but to e book his first official protection as undisputed champion, however all indicators at present level towards a long-awaited conflict with former interim titleholder Ciryl Gane. In fact, that hasn’t stopped different contenders like Jailton Almeida from throwing his identify within the hat.
