With Jon Jones now retired and Tom Aspinall installed as the heavyweight champion, Dana White is now preparing for talks with the star to establish when he’ll make the first defense of his title.
“Tomorrow starts International Fight Week [and] I’ll be back in Vegas tonight,” White told Bloody Elbow. “Tom will be there all next week.
“So, we’ll sit down with him, see what he’s thinking, what he wants to do. He’s been great through this whole thing and literally said, ‘I’ll fight whoever you guys tell me to fight. I’m ready to go.’ I’m looking forward to the Tom Aspinall era.”
White went on to confirm that a UFC pay-per-view event at Madison Square Garden in New York City that’s expected to take place in November could well prove to be the landing spot for what’s sure to be one of the biggest fights of year.
“Yeah, that’s what we were shooting for,” White said of Aspinall featuring on the Madison Square Garden card. “We were shooting for New York, yeah.
“We’ve got to figure out the rest of the year. Aspinall is going to land somewhere there, yeah.”
As yet there’s no official word on who the UFC intends to put against Aspinall, though former interim champ and current No.1 contender Ciryl Gane would appear to be the most likely option.
Others like the No.2 ranked Alexander Volkov and No.5 placed Jailton Almeida also a possibility, but the No.3 and no.4 ranked Sergei Pavlovich and Curtis Blayes are almost certain to be given the cold-shoulder for now given that Aspinall already KO’d them both in a combined time of 129 seconds in his last two Octagon appearances.
