Taytro
Registered User
It's not hate it's just a very stupid situation the UFC has put themselves in. I don't get that "Jones is the champ". Aspinall is as much of a champ as Jones is, if not more. Why does Jones fighting Gane have more merit for being for the actual title than Aspinall vs Pavlovich? None of those 4 guys were the champ at HW, the UFC just decided which one they liked for the real belt. And they decided that the guy who hasn't ever fought in the division, wasn't ranked in the division, and was out for 3 years was more deserving than the best active fighters.We have no idea if he will eventually fight the interim champ. All we know is that he's the champ and he's hurt.
There's been plenty of situations where the #1 contender doesn't get the next shot because of how the timing works out so if there's a brief period where Aspinall fights someone else in like April and then Jones fights Miocic in like July and then Jones/Aspinall happens next November it doesn't really seem like a big deal to me. I'm not advocating having two belts for a prolonged period, but if there's a short-term thing where they try to make this Miocic/Jones fight then I get it and I don't have a big problem with it. It's not my ideal path - would love Aspinall/Miocic and the winner fights Jones - but I get it and it's not a big deal.
Jones also just got hurt like a month ago, I don't know if it's Jon Jones hate or what, but people just need to take a breath here.
We've also seen this a few times where there interim champion doesn't fight the champion and as soon as the fight starts they strip the interim champion. Which is probably what would happen once Jones is back, they can't have 2 titles being defended in the same division, so whats the point of an interim champion at all if he just loses the belt and never fights the champ? They have a wide open opportunity for Stipe vs Aspinall. Stipe is ready to fight (he was going to fight a month ago). And he's going to be iced for another 8 months? Seems like Aspinall wants to fight sooner rather than later and UFC isn't obliging. They've put themselves in a corner giving Jones preferential treatment compared to what happens in other divisions when a champ is hurt.
Not to mention Jones said openly that he might retire after the Stipe fight... My opinion is if they had no intentions of Jones vs Aspinall as soon as Jones is back. There wasn't a point in making that fight an interim title fight. It's only for the marketing and serves literally 0 other purpose.