Chael Sonnen is having a change of heart … which is probably the result of a change in information.
Not long after the UFC insider and former two-division title contender suggested the Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall title unification fight was “agreed all the way down to the date,” the former pizza peddler now claims Jones will get an additional six months to prepare, as requested.
That paves the way for yet another interim heavyweight title defense.
“The current plan right now, Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane for the interim championship,” Sonnen said on YouTube. “Now, I will back the moves. I will back the moves with full integrity in place because our overarching theme, our constitution itself within the sport of MMA is we fiercely adhere to the rules that we make up as we go. So, I’m on board and I like anything that ends in world championship. Not only are we going to have both [an interim and undisputed champion], we are going to contend for a second time the interim championship. But we’re going to do it for the first time in the presence of our undisputed champion and we may or may not be doing that in nine weeks at International Fight Weekend.”
Matchmakers have been scrambling to secure a marquee matchup for the annual International Fight Week card, UFC 317, on June 28. Unfortunately, Jones does not appear to be in any big hurry to make his Octagon return. In addition, lightweight titleholder, Islam Makhachev, is also dragging his feet with dreams of fighting in the 170-pound weight class.
We could have two interim title fights atop UFC 317.
“I’m here to tell you, according to a remarkably good source, Jon Jones is going to be afforded the ability to wait 180 days, which is equivalent to six months, which is what he asked for,” Sonnen continued. “Tom Aspinall is going to fight with Ciryl Gane, which was, in fact, on the table many months ago and then Ciryl was gifted a decision in a fight that he lost against [Alexander] Volkov. That’s the way the story happened. And now we’re going to defend an interim champion with the existence of an undisputed champion, which is against the laws of logic and the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of champion as well as undisputed as well as interim, but we are going to adhere to the one thing that we do consistently: We are going to closely follow the rules that we make up as we go.”
Like the ones that allow fighters to score title shots while coming off a loss.
Jones (28-1, 1 NC) has not competed since retiring Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 last fall. As for Aspinall (15-3), he scored the interim heavyweight title by smashing Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 295, then defended the substitute strap at UFC 304 by planishing Curtis Blaydes.
Gane (13-2) was submitted by Jones in their UFC 285 title fight back in early 2023.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
