When Jon Jones vacated his UFC light heavyweight title in 2020, it was because he didn’t want to hold up the division.
Towards the end of Jon Jones‘ reign over the light heavyweight division, he made it clear that he had plans to move up to heavyweight.
He eventually did so and won the vacant title against Ciryl Gane in 2023 further enhancing his claim as the greatest fighter of all time.
Since then, though, ‘Bones’ has only defended his title once against Stipe Miocic last November and has continued to delay a potential title unification fight against Tom Aspinall.
Jon Jones’ old statement resurfaces as he continues to delay fight
Aspinall recently opened up that the continuous delays on Jones’ side have been tougher to deal with than when he suffered a career-threatening injury in 2022.
Over the years, Jones’ mindset has clearly changed, as with him continuing to delay a fight against the Brit, an old statement he made regarding vacating the 205lb title has resurfaced.
“I vacated the light heavyweight championship because I knew my heavyweight goals were going to take some time. I wasn’t going to play games with the contenders and make people fight (for) interim championship belts. There’s little rest on the throne,” Jones said in 2020 after vacating the title.
This time, though, the 37-year-old seems happy to leave Aspinall on the sidelines and has even recently told him to ‘shut your mouth and do what you’re told’.
UFC fans have become restless over the delays and recently, a petition to have Jones stripped of his heavyweight title surpassed 100,000 signatures.
Tom Aspinall angers fans with ‘Heavyweight news’
Earlier this week, fans got excited after Aspinall revealed he had some ‘heavyweight news’ to drop, however, he quickly shot down any chances of it being fight news.
The interim champion went on to announce that he has released some new heavyweight fightwear, which infuriated fans who were hopeful of some fight news.
Despite Dana White’s confidence that Jones will fight this year, as the months continue to pass the more unlikely it seems that we will ever see ‘Bones’ step foot back in the Octagon.