Aspinall: Jones 'has to fight me or retire'

Tom Aspinall believes UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones is running out of options.

"There's nowhere to go for Jonny," Aspinall told One On One's Adam Catterall in an interview published Thursday. "He either has to fight me or retire now.

"And if he does retire, everyone knows that he will have been avoiding me."

Aspinall has sought a blockbuster matchup against Jones ever since claiming the UFC interim heavyweight title in November 2023. But Jones, who defended his belt for the first time against Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 last November, has shown a lack of interest in unifying the belts with the 31-year-old Englishman.

After his win over Miocic, Jones said the UFC would need to offer him "f--k-you money" for the Aspinall bout to materialize and that he preferred a superfight with then-light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira instead.

However, Pereira no longer holds the 205-pound title after dropping a unanimous decision to Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313 earlier in March. Aspinall believes Ankalaev's title win ruled out Jones-Pereira as a potential matchup.

"(Pereira's loss) couldn't have happened at a better time for me, personally," Aspinall said.

"There literally isn't another fight for Jon at the moment," he added.

UFC CEO Dana White said earlier this month he's "very confident" Jones and Aspinall will fight this summer. Although Aspinall is getting tired of waiting around for Jones, he has no choice but to trust the UFC that the matchup will come to fruition.

"I don't know," Aspinall said when asked if he thinks the Jones fight will happen. "I want it to, obviously. I think I've been talking about it for, like, three years now. In all honesty, I've been in the rooms with the UFC brass - Dana, Hunter (Campbell), the rest of them - a few times, and they've told me it's happening. And that's all I can go off."

He added, "When I've sat down and spoken to them, they're confident it happens. So, I trust that it's gonna happen if they're telling me that."