Aspinall Picks His Next Fight

There will be no champion vs. champion fight involving Tom Aspinall at UFC 300, but the interim heavyweight title holder sees one fight as a possibility in the new year.

UFC interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall is one of the most exciting fighters on the roster right now. Unfortunately, he’s also stuck waiting on the sidelines for a logjam at the top of his division to sort itself out.

Aspinall won the interim title back in November 2023. He won’t get a chance to unify the titles until undisputed champ Jon Jones heals from a torn pectoral muscle … and then fights Stipe Miocic. Maybe he and Stipe retire immediately after that fight, or maybe they won’t. Either way, Tom Aspinall has to wait for all that to play out.

There’s no law that says the young Brit can’t keep fighting down the rankings in the meantime, though. On New Years Eve, Aspinall shared his thoughts on what could be next. Unfortunately it doesn’t sound like a champ vs. champ fight against Alex Pereira is in the cards.

“He wants to defend his 205 title. Which I understand,” Aspinall wrote on X (formerly Twitter) regarding a rumored Pereira bout at UFC 300.

Aspinall also said he’d “love to” fight Jon Jones, and listed Brock Lesnar as his “dream fight.” His more realistic fight choice, though?

“Winner of Blaydes Almeida sounds good,” he wrote.

Curtis Blaydes vs. Jailton Almeida is set to go down at UFC 299 on March 9th. That gives the winner just enough time to recover and turn around for a rumored July show in England.

That’s a long time to wait for Tom Aspinall fans, but ‘wait’ seems to be the order of the day right now as Conor McGregor has gotten a late June return date and Jones vs. Miocic is nowhere on the horizon. Just like Islam Makhachev sat out through 2023 for Abu Dhabi, the UFC has a U.K. show to fill and Aspinall is the perfect guy to do it.