{"id":66771,"date":"2025-08-13T15:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/66771\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T15:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:25:09","slug":"jon-jones-reportedly-backtracked-on-fighting-tom-aspinall-even-after-demands-were-met","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/66771\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Jones reportedly backtracked on fighting Tom Aspinall even after demands were met"},"content":{"rendered":"

New rumours have come to light regarding Jon Jones’ decision to retire and ultimately not defend his UFC undisputed heavyweight title against Tom Aspinall.<\/p>\n

The destructive Aspinall had long sought a fight with Jones and would have fancied his chances in a bout given Jones was at the tail end of his MMA<\/a> career.<\/p>\n

However, Jones was not keen to step into the Octagon with the Englishman despite mass pleas from fans to see the fight take place.<\/p>\n

Instead, Jones\u00a0stepped away from fighting in June<\/a>, bowing out\u00a0as a two-weight UFC world champion.<\/p>\n

Jones’ retirement\u00a0meant Aspinall was immediately upgraded from interim heavyweight holder to undisputed champion of the division.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old from Greater Manchester will defend his new title<\/a> for the first time at UFC 321 on October 25, with Frenchman Ciryl Gane looking to take the heavyweight crown in Abu Dhabi.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcf2\u00a0Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp<\/a><\/p>\n

Jones’ alleged demands for a fight with Aspinall were met<\/p>\n

According to one top UFC source, a fight between Jones and Aspinall was somewhat closer to coming together than previously thought.<\/p>\n

MMA journalist Ariel Helwani has revealed that Jones requested a specific high amount to fight Aspinall and that figure actually happened to be agreed upon.<\/p>\n

“(Jones) gave the UFC a number. I believe it\u2019s in the $30 million range for this fight,” Helwani stated on the Impaulsive podcast<\/a> with Logan Paul.<\/p>\n

“(Jones) didn\u2019t think they would come up with the number, and they did. I believe Saudi Arabia was involved. The big dogs were involved.”<\/p>\n

However, Helwani believes that Jones had no genuine intention of fighting Aspinall and explained what narrative he believes the now retired fighter was trying to create.<\/p>\n

“I think it was a calculated decision on his (Jones’) part (to ask for $30m).\u00a0Why did you drag this out all the way until June (his retirement) when you knew you weren\u2019t going to fight him?”<\/p>\n

“(Jones) said yes, and then two days later said, \u2018On second thought, I\u2019m out.\u2019 I think he was hoping they would not meet the number and he could go, \u2018Hey guys, I tried,'” Helwani added.<\/p>\n

MMA news and related links<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New rumours have come to light regarding Jon Jones’ decision to retire and ultimately not defend his UFC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-66771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}