Why does Jon Jones need to fight Tom Aspinall?

[capnlarge]

He defended it against a 42 year old (who used to be great) firefighter who didn't fight since early 2021, or win since 2020, instead of the 31-year old Interim champ, who is finishing everyone very, very fast.

It's like when Bisping fought old Hendo, or arguably worse. Technically it's a title defense, sure.

Hendo put up a way better fight. Bisping looked like he went through a wood chipper

 

[HHJ]

Hendo put up a way better fight. Bisping looked like he went through a wood chipper

Yeah

Hendo has for almost all of his career, been a person who is just hard to beat. Like you beat him but god, what a pain in the ass to fight a guy like this

he's like a neanderthal lol

 

[RockyLockridge]

then Tom loses his next HW fight by KO, the win means nothing. Ciryl Gane was just as dangerous of an opponent as Tom, and apparently now that win means nothing for Jones?

No you see gane was always a can in retrospect.


MMA fanbase has demonstrated that it does not appreicate jon jones, thus it should not get to see jones vs aspinall. There is no reason for jones to do it. He wont be appreciated for it, He wont be credited for winning.

 

[MotorCityCobra]

Jones is the best to ever do it in the UFC unless steroids are a disqualifier for you.

That said he is a paper champ at heavyweight. Alot of MMA is about momentum (current periera, ddp, mcgregor, strickland, etc).

Gane totally lost his mojo after losing to ngannou and was subpar against tuivasa. That along with his obvious nerves and impotent ground game, followed by fighting a 40+ guy who was brutally KOed in his last fight.

Aspinall has done way more at heavyweight and ngannou remains the lineal champion, with aspinall as the rightful heir after beating pavlovich.

jones is closing in on 40, I totally understand not wanting to fight bigger younger guys and lose... but hate to see the mayweather route employed in MMA. It's a bad trend.

Maybe turki drops enough money to make crossover fight with ngannou? That or aspinall or just hang it up.

I got jones as the best to ever do it, yet find myself highly annoyed with his HW run.

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

Ciryl Gane was just as dangerous of an opponent as Tom

How?

One guy has finished almost every one of his fights in the first round via a mix of KOs and submissions. The other is somewhat pillow fisted, had his first MMA fight in 2018, has largely been kept away from grapplers, got outwrestled by Ngannou and in his fight before Jon had to dig deep against fucking Tai Tuivasa.

Not saying it wasnt a good win but acting like Gane is as rough of a stylistic match up for Jon as Tom or Ngannou would have been is crazy.

 

[mkess101]

He doesn't have to fight him. He says he doesn't care about the belt, so they'll strip him or he'll vacate and then he can avoid Aspinall and retire or drop to 205 for Perreira or see if Perreira will do a non title HW fight.

As a fan I wanna see Jones/Aspinall of course. And I get why Jon doesn't want that fight (there's a reason he opened as an underdog to Tom but would be a big betting favorite over Alex). But Jon doesn't "need" to do anything. He's a grown man, and can decide on his own what to do.

 

[HHJ]

had to dig deep against fucking Tai Tuivasa.

Eh I wouldnt go that far. He got dropped by him but recovered quickly. He mostly dominated that fight.

For sure Aspinall looks to have a much more dangerous skillset.

 

[TheWobbler]

"Ciryl Gane was just as dangerous of an opponent as Tom"

Jon took him down right away because he saw what francis did to him. No ground game, no BJJ defence. Jon is great everywhere and yes he could have stood with cyril but why waste time.

Not sure he can do that to tom but I guess time will tell. But I still favour jon to win as he jsut has more tools in his locker.

 

[188912345]

No you see gane was always a can in retrospect.


MMA fanbase has demonstrated that it does not appreicate jon jones, thus it should not get to see jones vs aspinall. There is no reason for jones to do it. He wont be appreciated for it, He wont be credited for winning.

This is nonsense. There wouldn't be this level of unified annoyance at his ducking if he just said "one fight at a time, after Stipe we will see".

Instead he has come up with excuse after excuse about why he shouldn't have to face Aspinall, he admitted he didn't want to "gamble his legacy against a younger and bigger guy". He knows that fight is a big, big risk, but compare it to how DDP handled the Khamzat situation.

Then he compared him to OSP and Anthony Smith, gaslighting his casual fan base into thinking Aspinall is a nobody.

I would definitely give him 100% credit if he beat Aspinall, or even if he lost a decision to him in a close fight, since Aspinall is in his prime and Jon is getting to the stage where he's slowed down a bit.

 

[IsNormal]

The guy has fought on 2 PPV cards and is a no-name to anyone who isn't a reddit nerd.

Sure, no one knows Aspinall right NOW but no one knew Jon either when he got his first title shot.

When Jon got his title shot his record was worse than Tom's. Jon had 7 UFC fights. Mostly against noname opponents like Matyushenko, Vera, O'Brien, Hammil.

And Jon got to fight the legendary Shogun.
No one said "Oh this veteran shouldn't fight contenders - only other famous veterans"
Only ancient low tier vets like Jim Miller can be given those kinds of rules. Not champs.

Before Jon was a champ people weren't screaming his name at press conferences, like they were with Tom.
(Even if all of them are reddit nerds)

 

[RockyLockridge]

Then he compared him to OSP and Anthony Smith, gaslighting his casual fan base into thinking Aspinall is a nobody.

That is exactly what will happen if jones beats Aspinall. just saw it happen to gane.

Part of why i don't care to see that fight at all, Rather Jones just retire and everyone can pretend that Aspinall scared him away. It will be better for aspinalls marketing.

Of course if aspinall beat jones, He'd just be beating up senior citizens anyway. After all, the age gap between jones and aspinall is greater than the age gap between jones and stipe and Jones just caught a ton of crap for beating up the old guy. Would aspinall catch the same crap? Of course not. Why? because Jon Jones is a fighter that can not be spoken about in a rational or realistic way. he will NEVER be treated fairly. He will ALWAYS be held to a different standard.

 

[188912345]

That is exact what will happen if jones beats Aspinall. just saw it happen to gane.

Gane famously has a worse ground game and less power than Aspinall.

He's also known to have ducked Aspinall, Pavlovich and Blaydes.

Aspinall is way too accomplished to be written off as a can, just look at his record in recent years.

And check the odds for Jones vs Aspinall, and compare it to Jones vs Pereira or Jones vs Stipe, and I think deep down even you know why Jon doesn't want that fight.

We just want to see the best fight the best, if Jon wins I will give him his flowers.

A champion shouldn't be allowed to disregard his most dangerous opponents to get a higher probability title defense to inflate his legacy, like when UFC let Omalley defend against Marlon Vera, or Bisping vs Hendo.

 

[mkess101]

That is exact what will happen if jones beats Aspinall. just saw it happen to gane.

And? You don't base title fights on what some ignorant fans that hate Jon Jones might say on Twitter.

He is the HW champ. There's an interim HW champ that already defended that belt once. Jon got his "legacy fight". Now he gets to decide: be looked at as the best HW in the UFC and fight the guy who's miles ahead of anyone else in line...or...vacate and retire or take more "legacy fights".

I'm not saying this is or isn't necessarily you but this is what we get when people are bigger fans of a specific fighter than they are of the sport in general. They don't want to see awesome fights that are the absolute clear next up because they're worried their guy will lose. They spin and twist to justify it, and use logic like "Well his haters will just say Aspinall was never any good anyway". Like we should allow Jon Jones haters to dictate who he fights next LMAO. People with brains know how good Aspinall is win or lose vs Jones.

 

[RockyLockridge]

We just want to see the best fight the best, if Jon wins I will give him his flowers.

No you wont, You'll just say he was ducking Almedia or the next person to win 2 top fights at HW it'll never stop


He's done enough for you to give him his flowers now, but you won't. And I don't think anything he does will change that.

 

[RockyLockridge]

"Well his haters will just say Aspinall was never any good anyway". Like we should allow Jon Jones haters to dictate who he fights next LMAO. People with brains know how good Aspinall is win or lose vs Jones.

Because it's Jones career not mine and not yours. He's only fighting for his legacy at this point. Beating aspinall does not improve his legacy. He doesn't move up on any list of anything for beating aspinall.

 

[188912345]

No you wont, You'll just say he was ducking Almedia or the next person to win 2 top fights at HW it'll never stop


He's done enough for you to give him his flowers now, but you won't. And I don't think anything he does will change that.

Haha, no.

I rightly give him his credit for the overall best MMA-record, due to his insanely long title run at LHW. That's something that's not likely to be beaten anytime soon.

I can't however praise him for his HW-run, since he's cherrypicking and is refusing to fight the defending interim champion, who happens to be his toughest stylistic match--up.

Even you have to admit that beating Gane and old Stipe, and 0 other contenders isn't enough to show that he's for sure the best HW in the world at this moment.

You're looking at the mindset and rhetoric of Jones top 5 or 10% haters, and paint 100% of his critics with that same brush.

My favorite fighter is Khamzat, but I would absolutely not agree with him or defend him if he was to become a champion and then refuse to fight a young, super dangerous fighter who has earned his title shot, just to cherrypick a Weidman/Rockhold kind of "legacy" fight.

 

[The Bloody Nine]

Because it's Jones career not mine and not yours. He's only fighting for his legacy at this point. Beating aspinall does not improve his legacy. He doesn't move up on any list of anything for beating aspinall.

And he does for beating a guy from a lower weight class who can't wrestle for shit? Because that's the guy Jones is saying he'll fight because it will improve his legacy.

 

[SuperNerd]

He doesn't.

But Jon really cares what we think

 

[RockyLockridge]

And he does for beating a guy from a lower weight class who can't wrestle for shit? Because that's the guy Jones is saying he'll fight because it will improve his legacy.

At the VERY least, Periera is the most Iconic LHW since jones has left that weight class. He's maybe the most iconic fighter in the UFC today.

 

[RockyLockridge]

My favorite fighter is Khamzat, but I would absolutely not agree with him or defend him if he was to become a champion and then refuse to fight a young, super dangerous fighter who has earned his title shot, just to cherrypick a Weidman/Rockhold kind of "legacy" fight.

What if khamzat already had 15 title wins all against legit number one contenders in his weight class? (minus chael, Who he refused to fight because he said it did nothing for his legacy) Would it be okay to have one legacy fight after then retire?