It seems Jon Jones does not want to fight Tom Aspinall, and seemingly for good reasons. The Englishman demolished Sergei Pavlovich, the boogeyman of the heavyweight division who had seven consecutive first-round stoppages prior to his 69-second loss to Aspinall at UFC 295 last November. The card was originally supposed to be headlined by Jon Jones fighting heavyweight GOAT, Stipe Miocic in what was being termed as the ‘battle of the GOATs’, which Jones himself called the most important fight of his career.

However, a last-minute injury forced Jones to pull out and the bout was postponed pending Jones’ recovery. Aspinall vs. Pavlovich for the interim heavyweight title then replaced this bout where ‘Honey Badger’ walked out the interim champion. Aspinall has been calling out the undisputed champion to face him next to unify the title, rubbishing his upcoming bout with Miocic as irrelevant. Jones, on the other hand, has been playing down calls from Aspinall and fans, as he did in a recent tweet, prompting a response from MMA broadcaster Luke Thomas.

Luke Thomas calls out Jon Jones for nonsense over Aspinall’s call-out

Jon Jones responded to a fan’s tweet who felt Aspinall had done everything he could to fight the undisputed champion next and was right to be frustrated over Jones’s refusal to fight him next. ‘Bones’ claimed that he didn’t think that was how it worked, implying Aspinall didn’t deserve to fight him next, and went on an unrelated tangent about having become champion at 23 and proceeded to talk down Aspinall’s resume.

“I mean, it doesn’t really work like that. I was a champion when I was 23 years old, you can’t show up at age 30 pretending like you’ve been chasing me your whole life. I have no clue who 90% of his résumé is, meanwhile, I’ve been highlighting UFC events my entire career,” the undisputed champion tweeted.

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MMA broadcaster Luke Thomas, however, disagreed strongly, pointing out that Aspinall was the interim champion and deserved to fight for the undisputed title against Jones over Miocic. He correctly dismissed the rest of Jones’ tweets (X posts) as irrelevant to the topic.

“That’s precisely how it works. The titles are supposed to be unified. Tom Aspinall is the top contender/interim champion. The rest of this is flowery language about his own career that has zero bearing or even relevance on what fights should be made,” Thomas said. And even as he deals with the backlash from refusing to fight Aspinall, he has undergone a second surgery within four months.

Jones undergoes elbow surgery

Jon Jones had torn his pec in a training session in the run-up to UFC 295, causing him to pull out of the card. The American underwent surgery soon after and was ruled out of action for about eight months. And the undisputed champion has undergone another surgery, this time to shave down bone spurs on his elbow. Jones informed fans of the surgery and thanked them for their support in a video posted on his Instagram.

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“We had a two-hour surgery shaving down some bone spurs… So I thought I’d just kill two birds and get this elbow taken care of once and for all. I appreciate all the support. Your boy’s back in the sling, back on this recovery journey. Still on this recovery journey,” Jones said.

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