‘Bones’ Situation ‘A Massive Pain In The Ass’

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Tempers are starting to flare over in the U.K. as Team Aspinall continues to wait for Jon Jones to decide if he’ll even fight again.

Tom Aspinall’s father and head coach Andy Aspinall has shared his blunt opinion of the Jon Jones situation.

“Just a massive pain in the ass, really,” he declared in a new video posted to Tom’s YouTube channel.

Aspinall is the interim heavyweight champion and has been since November 2023. He’s defended that belt once, and at this point people are asking why he doesn’t defend again if the Jones fight isn’t coming up soon.

Considering most heavyweight champions don’t last more than two defenses, it makes sense that Aspinall doesn’t want to defend an interim which won’t be taken seriously years down the line when legacies are measured.

That doesn’t have Andy Aspinall feeling any better about the waiting game they find themselves in.

“Stupid. I’ve no idea why the UFC don’t really want Tom to fight anybody else other than Jon Jones,” Andy said. “They keep saying, ‘Stay tuned,’ that’s the message they wanted Tom to give out to people.”

“We had the meeting with Hunter [Campbell] and they’re gonna try and fix the fight with Jon Jones, but we’re in April now, still waiting for this guy to say ‘I’ll have a fight’ or ‘I’ll not have a fight’ and I don’t really understand that. He’s a fighter who should be having fights. Why is he just still sat around not giving an answer as to whether he’s gonna fight or not?”

“Tom’s done all he can do,” Andy added. “He’s fought in the middle of the night to defend the interim. He fought for the interim because the fight was on for him to do an interim, and he couldn’t turn it down. And he won that. What else can he do?”

“He can fight lesser people than Jon Jones, lesser ranked people than Jon Jones. But that means that he may miss the opportunity to fight Jon Jones, which is a massive opportunity because he’s the champion, and he’s the best there’s ever been ... What other choice he got to sit around and fight? He could fight the No. 8 ranked guy now. Why should No. 1 fight No. 8?”

Tom Aspinall recently said he knows what the UFC’s plan is regarding Jones ... but this kind of talk doesn’t really signal that’s true. Maybe they have an idea of a date deadline where the UFC strips Jones and everyone moves on from the situation. But there’s certainly no indication that they have a real idea of when the fight might actually happen, or if it’s more likely than not.

At least Dana White’s still optimistic about it!