Former UFC heavyweight Stipe Miocic responded to interim champ Tom Aspinall‘s public campaign to unify the belt against undisputed champ Jon Jones, stating he has never caused a delay in the fight with Jones and proposed a showdown with Aspinall after his fight with Jones.
Many MMA pundits reckon ex-UFC heavyweight Stipe Miocic should step aside. They believe it’s time to determine the top dog in the big-man division. Tom Aspinall, the interim champ, is one of these voices. He’s been quite vocal about wanting to unify the belt against undisputed champ Jon Jones.
Miocic responded on Friday to Aspinall’s tweets. The interim champ had been arguing that the title unifier should be the next fight on the UFC’s agenda. Aspinall made some valid points, but Miocic had a reasonable counterargument too.
“I’ve never been the reason for a delay in the Jon fight,” Miocic tweeted.
He added, “Tom, once I get this win, let’s talk to unify the belt.”
Aspinall, in his bid to fight Jones, pointed out Miocic’s inactivity. He humorously referenced the release of Grand Theft Auto 2 to illustrate this point.
“Last time Stipe fought and won, GTA: San Andreas had just come out on PS2,” Aspinall tweeted. “He will fight next for the undisputed heavyweight title, ahead of me, who’s the interim champ, active and ranked #1 in the world right now. This makes me quite upset.”
Miocic was set to fight Jones at UFC 295 last November. But Jones got a torn pectoral during training before the event. The UFC decided to arrange an interim title fight on short notice between Aspinall and Sergei Pavlovich. Aspinall won the interim belt with a first-round knockout. He quickly called to unify the belt after his victory.
But UFC CEO Dana White didn’t bypass Miocic. He promised to reschedule Miocic vs. Jones when “Bones” was fit enough to fight. This decision left Aspinall in a bind for potentially most of 2024.
This week, Aspinall took to social media to make his case.
On The MMA Hour, Aspinall urged the UFC to let him progress in his career.
“I think that Stipe and Jones is an absolutely amazing match up,” he said. “But in my opinion, that was an amazing matchup for this past weekend, and I feel like the shine of that fight has kind of gone. I don’t know how anybody else feels about that, but I feel like now, they need to make either me and John Jones, or me and Stipe, because what’s kind of the point in the other stuff? Let’s move forward, let me fight one of the legends now, and let me move forward with my career, as opposed to doing this other stuff and wait around.”
“[Jones vs. Miocic] was amazing. That’s an amazing match up. But I don’t want to see that, and I don’t think anyone else wants to see that in a year’s time. Let’s move on from that now, and let me fight one of the legends and beat the legends.”
Miocic’s last UFC appearance was in March 2021. He lost the heavyweight title to then-champ Francis Ngannou. It was widely speculated that his fight with Jones at UFC 295 would be his swan song. But he kept saying he hadn’t made up his mind yet.
Miocic proposed a showdown with Aspinall assuming he wins against Jones.
“Tom, once I get this win, let’s talk to unify the belt,” he wrote.