Tom Aspinall will be defending the UFC World Heavyweight title in ten weeks.
As you can imagine, the 32-year-old is super focused on his fight against Ciryl Gane both mentally and physically. But there’s a weird layer to this story and it involves Jon Jones. Aspinall was crowned the Undisputed Champion after Jones decided to abruptly retire from MMA altogether.
It was genuinely a shocking moment since Jones has never teased leaving the octagon. But it was a necessary decision since it finally allowed the heavyweight division to move forward. But then to the surprise of everyone, Jones announced two weeks later he was re-entering the UFC testing pool and it’s been made official that Jones is back in as he’s on the anti-doping website submitting his third sample this year.
Jones has been lobbying for a heavyweight title match at the UFC White House special. While this is a never say never situation, Dana White is hesitant to put him on such a big card, but as for Tom, he’s simply not interested in the fight.
"It's just so boring," Aspinall said on "The Ariel Helwani Show" of Jones possibly coming out of retirement. "I don't even have a comment on it. It's boring as hell, don't want to talk about it. I've already got a fight, so I'm focusing on that. I micro-manage things so well mentally. For the next 10 weeks of my life, all I'm thinking of is Ciryl Gane and how to beat him. ... It has spent zero seconds in my mind. I'm not interested, and the world shouldn't be interested either, because what's the point? It's false hope.
You can understand why Tom has little interest because of the trails and tribulations he went through with Jones the first time around. But he also believes that Americans should be on the special White House card in 2026.
"It doesn't not interest me, but it doesn't really interest me. It would be a cool experience, but I feel like the Americans should get the shot at the White House. I'm not American. Trump and the political stance in America doesn't really bother me at all. I'm not a big Trump supporter, or I'm not against him. I don't know anything about American politics. I'm not American, I don't live there, I don't reside there, I don't do anything there apart from pay taxes and fight there. So all of that stuff just is irrelevant to me."