Chael Sonnen confidently claimed on the ‘Good Guy / Bad Guy’ show earlier this week that the heavyweight title showdown everyone wants to see between current champion Jon Jones and interim titleholder Tom Aspinall is a done deal, but now he’s changed his mind after hearing an update from a reliable source.
“I might have said that. I also did believe that to be true,” Sonnen said of the Jones vs. Aspinall fight n his latest YouTube video.
“The current plan, right now, Tom Aspinall versus Ciryl Gane – Are you ready? For the interim championship,” Sonnen said.
“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 equal to six months which is what he asked for.
“Tom Aspinall is going to fight with Ciryl Gane, which was in fact on the table many months ago. And then Ciryl was gifted a decision in a fight that he lost against Volkov. That’s the way the story happened. And now we’re going to defend an interim champion with the existence of an undisputed champion.”
If true that’s going to frustrate a lot of fans who have been waiting a long time for this particular fight, and of course no one will be more aggrieved about it than Aspinall, who has been relentless in his pursuit of this opportunity to finally compete for the undisputed title.
Aspinall won the interim title by KO’ing Sergei Pavlovich in 69 seconds back in November of 2023.
In normal circumstances an undisputed title shot would come next, but instead Aspinall had to accept an interim title defense against Curtis Blaydes last summer, and promptly KO’d him in 60 seconds.
And yet still Aspinall appears to be getting forced to fight again due to Jones continued reluctance to face him.
And if this goes ahead it puts the UFC in an awkward spot as not only will they be putting the possibility of making what Dana White has described as the biggest fight in heavyweight history between Jones and Aspinall in jeopardy, but also if Aspinall did lose this interim bout, it would leave them having to make a rematch between Jones and Gane that no one is calling for given that he already easily beat him by submission to win the title just two fights ago.
It should be stressed however that this is currently still just a rumor from Sonnen, who hasn’t proven to be the most reliable source, but given that Aspinall has hinted in recent days that fight news is coming, hopefully it won’t be too much longer before the UFC’s plan falls into place.
