Tom Aspinall believes rival Jon Jones was “smart” to avoid faceoff

UFC interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall believes the undisputed champ Jon Jones was smart to avoid a faceoff with him.

Ever since winning the belt, Tom Aspinall has been calling for a showdown with undisputed heavyweight champion Jon Jones. It’s been a long time coming, but unfortunately, nothing has been set in stone as of yet.

Instead, Jones appears to be gearing up for a meeting with Stipe Miocic once he’s fit and healthy. Tom, meanwhile, is being rumored to appear at a UK PPV this summer.

RELATED: Tom Aspinall reacts to Jon Jones removing hand from his shoulder during tense run-in: “I wasn’t there to be disrespectful”

A while back, Aspinall and Jones ran into one another at the Arnold Sports Festival. Jones didn’t appear to be too interested in a genuine faceoff, and the Englishman thinks that was wise.

Aspinall’s Jones run-in

“I wanted to face off,” Aspinall said. “Jon’s smart, you know? … Jon will not say anywhere — you can’t find it, it’s not out there — that he will fight me. He won’t say it anywhere publicly. He won’t say it. You can’t find a clip, a quote, nothing, anywhere, of Jon Jones saying, ‘One day I’m going to fight Tom Aspinall, and I’m going to freaking beat the brakes off him. That’s what I’m going to do.’ That doesn’t exist. He doesn’t want any evidence, anywhere, of him agreeing to any kind of fight with me, because he doesn’t want to go back on that.

“He doesn’t want to do a faceoff because that promotes a potential fight. When I ask him, ‘Jon are we going to do this?’ He doesn’t say, ‘Absolutely. Let me get Stipe out of the way and we’ll do it.’ He’ll instead say, ‘Oh, maybe one day.’ Because he doesn’t want that quote of, ‘We’re going to fight one day.’ It’s super smart.”

Quotes via MMA Fighting

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