Chael Sonnen is now saying that Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall is not a confirmed fight after all.
Just one day after announcing that the highly anticipated heavyweight unification bout was “agreed, all the way down to the date,” Sonnen has walked back that statement on his YouTube channel. The former three-time UFC title challenger explained that while he initially understood Jones would fight Aspinall next, he now sees a different opponent lined up.
“OK, I might have said that,” Sonnen acknowledged. “I also did believe that to be true… But one thing I do know I told you word for word… I told you Tom Aspinall’s next fight is done, but I don’t know that it will be against Jon Jones. I then told you if Jon Jones fights again, Jon Jones’ next fight will be against Tom Aspinall. I told you that.”
Instead of facing Jones, Sonnen expects Aspinall to defend his interim belt against Ciryl Gane, who is also a former interim champion.
“The current plan right now, Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane for the interim championship,” Sonnen stated. He added that he supports this move, humorously noting that within MMA, rules are often made up as they go, but he is “on board and I like anything that ends in world championship.”
The current complex state of the heavyweight championship began when Francis Ngannou departed the UFC in 2023 while still champion. Jon Jones then moved up from light heavyweight and quickly defeated Gane at UFC 285 to win the vacant undisputed title. However, an injury forced Jones out of a planned defense against Stipe Miocic eight months later, which led to Aspinall defeating Alexander Volkov for an interim title.
Since those events, both champions have competed: Aspinall avenged a loss to Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304, and Jones defeated Miocic in their rescheduled bout at UFC 309. Despite Aspinall`s impressive 8-1 UFC record compared to Jones`s two heavyweight fights, Jones has consistently dismissed the idea of fighting Aspinall, questioning his credentials.
According to Sonnen, whether fans like it or not, if they hope to see Jones fight Aspinall eventually, Aspinall likely needs another strong performance first.
Sonnen pointed out the unusual scenario of potentially seeing the interim championship contested a second time, notably for the first time in the presence of the undisputed champion. This could happen possibly in about nine weeks at International Fight Weekend.
“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 claimed. “Tom Aspinall is going to fight with Ciryl Gane, which was, in fact, on the table many months ago… 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.”
Wesley Dunham