Dana White: 'Jon Jones was offered the deal and accepted the deal' to fight Tom Aspinall
There may be some hope left after all in never-ending saga between UFC heavyweight champions Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall.
The MMA community at large has seemingly grown tired of the lengthy wait for Jones and Aspinall to have their long-awaited title unification clash, so much so that a Change.org online petition to strip Jones of his UFC heavyweight title has been created and signed by nearly 200,000 people, just to finally move on from the teased bout.
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To make matters more frustrating, Jones has continued to troll the situation relentlessly on social media over recent weeks. But speaking Saturday following UFC 316 in Newark, New Jersey, UFC CEO Dana White indicated that he remains hopeful for the current heavyweight situation to work itself out.
“I’ve been saying [the Aspinall fight will happen] since the beginning, and Jon Jones agreed to do the fight [against Aspinall],” White said. “Jon Jones was offered the deal and accepted the deal.
“Unless you hear it come from [my mouth] or we put out a press release, don’t believe any of this bulls***. Unless we come out and say something, it’s all bulls***. … But yes, Jon agreed to fight Tom, fact.”
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Jones’ absence is becoming so prolonged that he’s is closing in on making bizarre history as the longest reigning UFC heavyweight champion of all time, despite only defending the title once since winning it against Ciryl Gane in March 2023. Among his latest social media posts have been comments about not caring if he’s stripped of the title and criticizing interim titlist Aspinall. Jones, 37, has even gone so far as to suggest he’s more interested in a previously failed fight with PFL’s Francis Ngannou than Aspinall.
White admitted to having been forwarded the aforementioned petition to strip Jones of the belt by “every human on Earth,” but hasn’t kept up with Jones’ latest ventings.
“F***ing crazy,” White reacted. “I’ve been busy, I haven’t been keeping up with the gossip. [Jones] comes back either today or came back yesterday — he was in Thailand, so he’s home [now]. We’ll be home tonight, and Tuesday, we’ll figure this out. Tom Aspinall’s the guy.
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“Listen, if the guy wants to retire and doesn’t want to fight, [there’s] nothing you can do. I didn’t want Khabib (Nurmagomedov) to retire. I thought [Daniel Cormier] should have stuck around longer. It’s none of my business. I’ll do what I can to make the fight if we can. If he’s talking that crazy s***, I didn’t realize that.”
Regarding Ngannou, that’s a door White has seemingly slammed shut in the years since Ngannou departed the UFC as its heavyweight champion in 2023. The UFC boss remains unreceptive to even entertaining the concept of Jones vs. Ngannou, stating that it’s England’s finest or no one at all for Jones.
“It’s Aspinall’s fight. We’ve been talking to this kid forever about it,” White said.
“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.”