Two Options: Aspinall Or Retirement

White is giving Jones two options if he wins at UFC 309: fight Aspinall, or retire.

So much for fun superfights!

Jon Jones has been all over Madison Square Garden during UFC 309 fight week talking about fighting everyone except Tom Aspinall. He suggested a BMF belt bout with Alex Pereira. A fun fight with Jamahal Hill. A knockout affair with Derrick Lewis. And if he has to give up the heavyweight title to pursue these fights? Yeah, that’s fine, whatever.

Unfortunately for Jon, this isn’t boxing where the stars call the shots and decide who they’re going to fight. Despite glazing Jones as the MMA GOAT for the past several months, UFC CEO Dana White declared there were only two choices for “Bones” if he beats Stipe Miocic on Saturday night: Aspinall or retirement.

“Jon’s weird in in how he deals with this type of stuff,” White told Jim Rome in a new interview. “Like, he’ll show up for a fight like this, prepared mentally, physically, everything else. Then when the fight’s over, he sort of goes and disappears and has to get that, you know, the — I don’t know if you’d call it the … he wants to challenge himself again.”

“I think John will eventually come back and face Tom Aspinall,” White concluded. “But if he decides Saturday night, ‘That’s it, it’s over,’ it’s his right to make that decision. What this guy’s accomplished, nobody else has even come close to accomplishing, and he’s the greatest of all time.”

“For anybody to to say he’s ducking anybody? Jon Jones is like 38 years old. He’s fought everybody. He’s fought all the best in the world, in their prime. Been doing it since he was 23 years old. He doesn’t duck anyone, and he’s undefeated. He’s never lost a fight, which is unbelievable in like 16 years.”

“If he wins, he’ll disappear for a while,” White repeated. “And then that competitive spirit will start bubbling up again, and then money will talk. And if he doesn’t decide to retire, he absolutely positively fights Aspinall.”

Aspinall and not UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira?

“Yeah. He’s not fighting Pereira,” White told Rome. “[Pereira] was a middleweight that moved up to light heavyweight, okay? He’s also a kickboxer who has done very, very well in MMA. His wrestling isn’t even near the level of Jon Jones, and Jon Jones is way bigger than him.”

“If Jon Jones wants to fight again after Saturday night, he will fight Tom Aspinall.”

This all sets up a repeat of the 2020 breakdown between Jones and the UFC that saw “Bones” walk away from the sport for two years after the promotion refused to renegotiate his pay for a move up to heavyweight. White is painting Jones as a moody artist whose competitive spirit needs recharging. If he disappears, that’s just Jon being Jon. The truth is: what happens after UFC 309 is mostly about money and control.

Jones clearly has ideas on who he wants to fight and how he wants the end of his career to look. The UFC would rather end his career than let a fighter call the shots or disrupt the payscale. How you feel about that probably depends on what you think of Jon’s proposed matchmaking. But it would be an unfortunate end to a GOAT’s career if something can’t be worked out.