Daniel Cormier: Jon Jones made ‘a huge mistake’ not fighting Tom Aspinall

Daniel Cormier believes Jon Jones made a big mistake by not defending his UFC heavyweight title against Tom Aspinall.

Jones, one of the greatest MMA fighters ever, enjoyed a brief reign as UFC heavyweight champ at the tail end of his career. At the same time, England’s Aspinall held the division’s interim title. Rather than unify his belt with Aspinall’s, however, Jones ultimately decided to retire from competition and relinquish his belt. It was only then that Aspinall was finally promoted to undisputed champion.

At this point, it seems unlikely that Jones will ever fight again — though he has expressed interest in competing on next year’s UFC White House card. That being said, there is still widespread interest in a fight between him and Aspinall.

Cormier, for his part, believes the matchup will only get more difficult for Jones the longer he waits.

Jon Jones made ‘huge mistake’ not unifying UFC title with Tom Aspinall

“We don’t know what twenty five minutes with Tom Aspinall looks like,” Jones told Aspinall in a video on his YouTube channel, referencing the champ’s absurd average fight time of just over two minutes. “So the unknown should give guys confidence that right now is the time to fight you in that long fight.

“Jon Jones, I think he made a huge mistake by not fighting you now,” Cormier added. “Because what if you go twenty five minutes and you still win, but you understand that fatigue? Because it is a different fatigue. Once you do it once, though, it’ll become like, yes… Right now’s the time to be fighting Tom Aspinall before you get that experience.

Cormier then compared Aspinall to former heavyweight champ Francis Ngannou. Ngannou lost his first five-round fight against Stipe Miocic, only to win their rematch by KO years later.

“Francis Ngannou could not fight twenty five minutes until he went and fought Stipe Miocic for twenty five minutes and he exhausted himself,” he said. “Then he was able to fight twenty five minutes.”

Tom Aspinall will defend his title against Ciryl Gane in the main event of UFC 321 this Saturday.