Dana White has revealed that he’s still aiming to get heavyweight champion Jon Jones back into the Octagon again by this summer.
“The plan is to fight Jon this summer,” White said on the Jim Rome Show. “Obviously, when, where and all that stuff is being determined.”
White went on to confirm that the fight to make for Jones is still Tom Aspinall, who has been impatiently waiting on the sidelines for the fight since defending his interim heavyweight belt with a KO win over Curtis Blaydes last summer.
“My goal this year is to make that fight [with] Aspinall,” White stated.
With that being said, White also acknowledged that a superfight between Jones and current light-heavyweight champion Alex Pereira is also a fight that could well happen in the future if the Brazilian ace can get past his latest challenger Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313 on Saturday night.
“If he rips through Ankalaev the way he has everybody else — the other thing about Pereira that everybody loves is, this guy wants to go up to heavyweight and fight at heavyweight, too,” White said. “I’m the one that’s actually holding him back on that.”
White went on to stress that Jones vs. Aspinall should happen first though.
“Let’s see how this fight [at UFC 313] plays out, if he wins, how he wins, all that kind of stuff. I think that the fight that everybody wants to see right now is Jones and Aspinall, and then there’s no doubt that Pereira could fight the winner.”
