UFC CEO, Dana White, said the heavyweight title fight between reigning division champion, Jon Jones, and current interim titleholder, Tom Aspinall, is 100-percent guaranteed to happen in 2025, while batting down rumors of “f—k you money” and potential retirement.
So please, stop whining.
Despite his emphatic victory over former 265-pound kingpin, Stipe Miocic, the 37 year-old Jones is no longer the favorite to defeat Aspinall, several years younger than Jones at 31. But don’t count Cain Velasquez among the many insiders picking against “Bones.”
“No, I don’t think he [beats Jon Jones],” the former UFC heavyweight champion told Ariel Helwani. “Me, just watching him, I kind of see his pattern a little bit in his striking, the way he comes in and strikes. I think Jon sees it too. So, I think with that — Jon studies. He does his homework. He’s a master at this. He analyzes things, he studies you over and over again. I think just for that reason, he’s going to know what to do. So I don’t think [Aspinall] beats Jon. Everybody has a fight pattern. Some people disguise it better than others. The simple fact is the way Tom, the way that he comes in and fights, he has a pattern that’s somewhat easier to find.”
Jones, certified evil genius, appears to have revived his mystique at UFC 309.
“When he comes in and strikes, a lot of things come with that,” Velasquez continued. “It’s disguising the pattern, it’s throwing fakes before. But when he comes in and attacks, he comes in and attacks. It’s 100 percent, full go. He comes in and glides in, lunges in, and does his attack. Not that it’s not effective, it is. He’s done great things with it. Look where he’s at now. I’m not taking anything away from him. But I think that the type of guy that Jon Jones is, I think he studies him and he beats him because of that.”
Negotiations for Jones vs. Aspinall are currently underway.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
