Aspinall Cast A Shadow Over UFC 309 Fight Week
The build-up to UFC 309 seemed to be dominated by a fighter who wasn’t even competing in Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. In the weeks leading up to the event the majority of the discourse surrounding the heavyweight title fight at the top of the card focused not on how the bout between Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic might play out, but rather on the debate over whether interim champion Tom Aspinall should have been the one challenging for the belt.
Once fight week rolled around, Jon Jones seemed to pull the pin out of that grenade by labelling Aspinall “an a**hole” while speaking to the media and all hell broke loose from that point on. Miocic was barely mentioned during the remainder of the build-up (a fact the unassuming former champion would surely have been delighted about) and “Bones” continued to grab headlines as he shouted from the rooftops about his plans to face light-heavyweight champion Alex Pereira next instead of Aspinall.
Dana White, speaking at the pre-fight press conference, left no doubt as to where his mind was at on the topic. When asked if the winner of the main event should face Aspinall next, the UFC president responded adamantly: “The winner should absolutely fight Tom!”
Questions Left Unanswered
On Saturday night both Jones and Miocic were handed the opportunity to silence the doubters. Two of the finest champions in UFC history locked inside the Octagon together. Jones with the chance to remind the watching world of his greatness, while Miocic will surely have wanted to prove that he could still perform at the highest level.
There are some aspects of Jones’s performance to be impressed by. He took Miocic by surprise, fighting predominantly as a southpaw for the entire fight. This opened up the stabbing back-leg kick to the body which he utilized repeatedly and it had it’s desired effect of draining the Cleveland native’s gas tank.
Jones also looked in far better physical shape than we had seen him during his only other appearance in the heavyweight division when he beat Cyril Gane to win the vacant title back in early 2023, having weighed in 10.4lbs lighter this time around.
For many of those who criticized this match-up over the past year however, the non-performance of Stipe Miocic looks to have added fuel to those flames. With the overriding feeling among the fight’s critics coming into UFC 309 being that 42-year-old Miocic was simply too far removed from his prime to cause Jones any problems, nothing we saw at MSG on Saturday night will have helped to change those opinions.
Miocic hadn’t set foot inside the Octagon since his defeat at the hands of Francis Ngannou in early 2021, and hadn’t tasted victory in competition since beating Daniel Cormier in the summer of 2020. When he failed to land much in the way of significant strikes on Jones over the course of almost three full rounds on Saturday, those who opposed the fight from the beginning made their feeling clear, with Aspinall chief among them.
“The fight, in all honesty, went exactly the way I thought it was going to go” Aspinall told TNT Sports afterwards. “That could have gone on for five rounds, could have gone on for one or two rounds, do you know what I mean? Jon Jones had the upper hand, he was more athletic, he was showing him more things, he was giving him different looks than Stipe (gave) him.
“Stipe essentially was running at him with basic boxing techniques and in all honesty was too slow and old to land the shots. And that’s not me saying anything bad about Stipe, that is the reality of it”.
Where Do We Go From Here?
We’re right back where we began it would seem, with UFC fans still calling for the same match-up they wanted to see after Tom Aspinall decimated Sergei Spivac a year ago under the MSG lights to win the interim title. The major difference now is that any potential unification bout will be the biggest possible fight the promotion could make following the events of UFC 309 fight week.
Jon Jones appeased the New York crowd during his post-fight interview in the Octagon by saying, “maybe we’ll give you guys what you want to see”. He went on to double back on those words when speaking to the media later that night, but reading between the lines it sounds like the champ could be swayed into facing Aspinall if the UFC are willing to loosen their purse strings a little more next time around.
The situation certainly echoes that of the Jones-Francis Ngannou one just a few short years ago, but with “Bones” tied down to a long-term contract with the UFC we’re unlikely to see him follow his former rival’s example and test free agency. If Dana and co are willing to wet the champion’s beak a little more then we may just see him face Aspinall during International Fight Week 2025.
Stipe Miocic confirmed to Joe Rogan in the Octagon immediately after the fight that he would be officially retiring. He did it in typical Stipe fashion too…if Rogan hadn’t asked him, we probably wouldn’t have found out at all.
The most accomplished heavyweight champion in UFC history deserved a better send-off given his achievements in the sport. In a world where Carla Esparza gets a video montage and a standing ovation from a packed arena upon retirement, and with the majority of the MMA world transfixed on the Jones-Aspinall sopa opera that’s been playing out before our eyes since the heavyweight champ landed in New York a week ago, seeing Miocic slope off into obscurity almost unnoticed serves as a poignant reminder of how quickly the news cycle moves on in today’s world.
