As Jon Jones gears up to face Stipe Miocic this weekend, the chatter about who he fights next has become the talk of the town. And Jones is to blame. The UFC heavyweight champion has declared that he is prepared to drop his title and fight light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira for the BMF belt for the sake of his legacy. But UFC veteran Ben Askren believes, Jones just doesn’t want any of that Tom Aspinall smoke.
Askren joined former UFC double champ Daniel Cormier for their weekly podcast on YouTube, where Askren explained that the BMF title was meant to be held by fighters who loved a scrap but weren’t good enough to win a real title.
“I mean I think Jon is just using it as a ploy to not face Aspinall is how it seems to me. I hate that I have to say this, but yes that is what it seems to me. Just fight Tom Aspinall and let us know who the best is.”
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Light heavyweight champion Pereira is one of the biggest stars in the UFC fight right now and a fight between Jones and him would be extremely successful commercially. However, Askren just does not see it happening because both fighters would have to vacate their world titles!
Jones, meanwhile wants to spend the rest of his career fighting legends and stacking up that unblemished record. Well, expect, he’s already got a strike on it.
Chael Sonnen blasts the idea of Jones’ record being changed
Imagine having just one blemish on an otherwise spotless record, and that loss is due to a controversial rule. With a 27-1 record, Jones’s sole defeat came from a disqualification against Matt Hamill for using the now-legal 12-6 elbow strike. Naturally, fans wonder if Jones could finally clear that “loss” from his record, but former middleweight contender, Sonnen thinks it’s unlikely.
Uncle Chael, as he is fondly called, is one of the sharpest voices in MMA. He points out that trying to overturn a fight result from 15 years ago is a stretch, especially with no official request from the fighter himself.
“Rules change, but rewriting history isn’t so simple,” he notes. For Sonnen, revisiting the past is more “silly” than realistic, even if Jones might wish the loss could be erased.
