It’s been almost 600 days and Jon Jones still has yet to unify the title against Tom Aspinall.
Instead of facing the interim champion last year, the UFC Heavyweight Champion locked in his first title defense against 42-year-old former champion Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 in November.
Following his TKO win over Miocic, Jon Jones hasn’t expressed all that much interest in fighting the undeniable Tom Aspinall next, opting for a reality TV show in Thailand across from Nate Diaz where he’s ‘living his best life’ sipping on coconuts and hanging out with Hasbulla.
Meanwhile, Aspinall’s waiting his turn to collide with the consensus greatest of all time in a super-fight which may never happen.
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Michael Bisping tells Jon Jones to ‘defend or vacate’ heavyweight title
Jones, 37, has fought generations of light heavyweights in his heyday but hasn’t been too keen on facing Aspinall, who’s six years younger and hits harder than ‘Bones’.
Just as how then-champ Mauricio Rua gave a 21-year-old Jon Jones a shot at the title in 2011, former UFC Middleweight Champion Michael Bisping thinks it’s time for Jones to return the favor against Aspinall.
“For Jon to not wanna give this guy an opportunity, where other people gave him an opportunity…” Michael Bisping said on The BohnFire with Mike Bohn.
“He was the youngest champion in this sport, and he’s always talking about, there’s always gonna be younger guys coming along. Well, what about when you were fighting for the belt and you were the youngest person to ever do it?
“You got that opportunity. And when you become the champion, there is an obligation to do that.
Bisping continued.
“Defend or vacate, it’s that simple.”
“And all these cryptic tweets and going out to Thailand and living his best life and s—, great. If that’s what you wanna do, congratulations, go off, enjoy your life, but do the decent thing…”
Tony Ferguson issued similar message to Conor McGregor before he was ultimately stripped of lightweight title
Before Jon Jones claimed the heavyweight throne, superstar Conor McGregor held up one of the UFC’s most exciting divisions at lightweight.
Instead of defending his newly-won title against Tony Ferguson or Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2017, McGregor crossed over to the boxing ring for a multi-million dollar match against Floyd Mayweather.
Ferguson campaigned for the McGregor fight for quite some time, telling the Irishman to ‘defend or vacate’ the title.
“What about our division?” Ferguson told TNT Sports of McGregor’s move to boxing in 2017.
“There’s plenty of people to be beaten up, but I have to say defend or vacate.
“If you don’t hold that belt for a certain amount of time you got to let it go, son.
“If you’re going to just hold it up a little bit more, you got to let it go. You’re holding on to something that’s just not there.”
After winning the title in Nov. 2016, McGregor was eventually stripped of the belt in Apr. 2018 with Khabib Nurmagomedov fighting Al Iaquinta for the vacant belt.
McGregor’s title reign lasted 521 days without a defense.
As of this writing, Jones’ title reign is nearly twice as much at 810 days with a sole title defense over Stipe Miocic. Aspinall became the interim champion 558 days ago following an injury for Jones that took him out of his title defense against Miocic at UFC 295.