Be careful what you wish for.
Interim UFC heavyweight champion, Tom Aspinall, has been angling for a title unification bout against reigning division kingpin, Jon Jones, ever since “Bones” walked through Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 last fall in New York. UFC CEO, Dana White, insists he’s hard at work on the matchup and hopes to have an update in the coming weeks.
Related
Retiring? Ducking? Nah, You Just Got Played By Genius Jones
Unfortunately for the outspoken Brit, Jones operates on his own timetable (not uncommon among top stars) and may be looking for another six months to prepare for his Octagon return. In the meantime, Aspinall has been using the media to paint “Bones” in a somewhat unfavorable light, which may backfire when it comes time to throw down.
That’s according to former two-division champion Daniel Cormier, who knows a thing or two about tangling with Jones.
“He’s very mean,” Cormier said on his “Good Guy-Bad Guy” show with Chael Sonnen. “He’s durable, he’s hard to fight, and Tom Aspinall is going to find that out, right? So yes, Chael, I love the duck, I love all the fun, I love all that, but at the end of the day when you get in there with that dude, don’t start rethinking things. Because you start rethinking things in there with that dude, he’s going to run right through you. You cannot start going, ‘Hey, man, it’s a little harder than I thought,’ because he is going to put it on you.”
Related
Jones: God Chose Me To Be Undefeated
Jones, widely considered the greatest MMA fighter in history (take note, clowns), has just one loss across 30 fights, a controversial 2009 disqualification against former TUF guy, Matt Hamill (who continues to petition for a rematch). But the numbers may have been lost on Aspinall, thanks to his runaway hype train.
“You know what the craziest thing is about being Tom Aspinall and being young and winning? The fans and the world can really make you go, ‘I am going to get this dude,’” Cormier continued. “And then you’re in there and you start losing, and you’re like, ‘God dang it, how am I losing?’ How does he deal with that if that starts to show itself in the fight or a long fight, because it’s going to be hard to get Jon Jones out of there in a minute.”
Hopefully we find out before White and Co. move on.
