Daniel Cormier believes Jon Jones made a big mistake by not defending his UFC heavyweight title against Tom Aspinall.
One of the greatest MMA fighters ever, Jones enjoyed a brief reign as UFC heavyweight champion at the end of his career. At the same time, England’s Aspinall held the division’s interim title. Rather than unify his belt with Aspinall’s, Jones ultimately decided to retire from competition and relinquish his belt. Only then was Aspinall finally promoted to undisputed champion.
At this point, it seems unlikely that Jones will ever fight again – although he has expressed interest in competing on next year’s UFC White House card. That said, there is still widespread interest in a fight between him and Aspinall.
For his part, Cormier believes the matchup for Jones will only get tougher the longer he waits.
Jon Jones made a ‘big mistake’ by not unifying the UFC title with Tom Aspinall
“We don’t know what twenty-five minutes with Tom Aspinall looks like,” Jones told Aspinall in a video his YouTube channelreferring to the champion’s absurd average fight time of just over two minutes. “So the unknown should give the guys confidence that this is the time to fight you in that long fight.
“Jon Jones, I think he made a big mistake by not fighting you now,” Cormier added. “Because what if you play twenty-five minutes and you still win, but you understand that fatigue? Because it’s a different fatigue. But once you do it once, it becomes like, yeah… This is the time to fight Tom Aspinall before you get that experience.”
Cormier then compared Aspinall to former heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou. Ngannou lost his first five-round fight against Stipe Miocic, but won their rematch years later by KO.
“Francis Ngannou couldn’t fight for twenty-five minutes until he went to fight Stipe Miocic for twenty-five minutes and he exhausted himself,” he said. “Then he could fight for twenty-five minutes.”
Tom Aspinall will defend his title against Ciryl Gane in the main event of UFC 321 this Saturday.
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