If the accusation that Jon Jones is truly ducking Aspinall is true, then his ticket out of that fight just got annulled. We’re of course talking about Alex Pereira losing in his fourth title defense to the Dagestani Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313. Jon Jones would have rather fought Alex Pereira next for the sake of legacy, rather than fulfill his duty of unifying the undisputed and interim heavyweight belts. Things would have probably moved in this direction if ‘Poatan’ had actually won his fight, proving himself as one of the greatest combat sports athletes of all time, and ready for the UFC’s first three-division championship status. Fortunately for Tom Aspinall that didn’t play out.

After his loss to Magomed Ankalaev, Alex Pereira uploaded a video to Instagram to address his loss, thanking his team and family for their support, and enjoying some pizza with them. ‘Bones’ took the opportunity to address Alex Pereira (and the rest of the world watching), that the heavyweight fight between them was off the books. “Disappointed, I was looking forward to sharing the octagon with you.”, wrote the two-weight champion.

And watching the action closely was none other than the English interim champion Tom Aspinall who wasted no time replying to Jon Jones’ comment, saying, “You got nowhere to run Jon.” Allegedly, these two comments that gained thousands of likes have since been deleted, although screenshots of this online exchange still exist.

And Aspinall wasn’t the only one to rain on Jon Jones’ parade. The newly minted light heavyweight champion Magomed Ankalaev—no stranger to taking shots at ‘Bones’—joined in to jeer at the two-weight champion. He took to X to post the following, “Johnny’s steroid machine was very disappointed. I beat Alex please fight big Tom Aspinall stop running.” He then did something very unlikely. He posted a friendly call out to the English interim heavyweight champion with the message, “Big Ank [handshake] Big Tom.”

And, how did Tom Aspinall respond? Well, in exactly the way you’d expect the English fighter to respond. Let’s take a closer look.

Is Tom Aspinall considering a change of opponent?

Magomed Ankalaev made a smart and calculated move after taking the strap from Pereira. He did not waste time and immediately posted his desire to fight the interim heavyweight champion. Looking at the Russian juggernaut’s physique, it won’t be hard for him to fight in the heavyweight category against someone as humongous as the Brit. And Aspinall? He was immediately on board with this idea.

The interim HW champ posted with “🤝” on his Instagram account. But there is still one hurdle though for Ankalaev. UFC CEO Dana White had already clarified that the fight between Jones and Aspinall would happen. “The plan is to fight Jon [Jones] this summer. My goal this year is to make that fight with Aspinall. I think the fight everybody wants to see right now is Jones vs. Aspinall…Alex Pereira could fight the winner,” White declared before UFC 313.

So it will be interesting to see who and which fight the boss favors in the end. Who do you think Tom Aspinall will fight ultimately? Share your thoughts in the comments.