After over a decade of dominance in the UFC’s light heavyweight division, Jon Jones became the  UFC heavyweight champion by defeating Ciryl Gane at UFC 285 last year. While the title helped cement Jones’ legacy as the GOAT, it soon turned into an albatross around his neck.

Tom Aspinall became the interim champion while Jones was injured and there have been continuous calls for the American to face the interim champion in his next fight to unify the title. Chief among those calling for this fight was Aspinall himself, who tried every trick in the book to try and make the fight happen.

Tom Aspinall has seemingly given up!

Jon Jones was supposed to face former champion and the man considered the heavyweight GOAT in Stipe Miocic at UFC 295 in November last year. Regardless, ‘Bones’ suffered a serious injury days before the bot and was forced to pull out.

As a replacement, the UFC put together a bout between Tom Aspinall and Sergei Pavlovich for the interim heavyweight title, in which the Englishman emerged victorious in impressive fashion, knocking out the Russian within two minutes.

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After becoming interim champion, however, Aspinall started lobbying for a unification bout with Jones, which the American is unwilling to do. This has led to accusations Jones is scared of Aspinall since the latter hasn’t fought anyone with the skillset, strength, and size of Aspinall.

And it seems after his unsuccessful media tour, which culminated in a confrontation with Jones, who even refused to have a symbolic face-off with Aspinall at a recent public appearance, ‘Honey Badger’ has admitted defeat and accepted that he probably will never get to fight the undisputed champion.

“I’m obviously confident that I could beat Jon Jones because I want to fight him. I don’t think Jon wants to fight. Obviously, I want it. I can’t do anymore. I’ve bitched about him, I’ve cried about him, I’ve said good stuff to him, said bad stuff to him, I’ve asked him about fighting to his face, it’s still not going on,” he said.

And he has seemingly moved on and may already have a new opponent on the horizon.

Aspinall accepts Curtis Blaydes’ callout

Tom Aspinall suffered the only loss of his professional MMA career against Curtis Blaydes in July 2022 after he blew out his knee within the first fifteen seconds of the bout. Given this unfinished business between them, ‘Razor’, after his UFC 299 victory over Jailton Almeida, called out Tom Aspinall.

“I believe me and Aspinall have some unfinished business. I’d like to get that one next. That’s my next fight: Aspinall,” he said in his post-fight octagon interview. Aspinall accepted the challenge, simply tweeting “Don’t gotta ask me twice. I’m in.”

And with the UFC reportedly putting together a card in Manchester, England, which is Aspinall’s hometown for this July, it seems that would be the perfect place for the Englishman to defend his interim title for the first time.

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