The thing is, everybody knows and expects Stipe to be an easy fight for Jones. Jon tries to wrap it up as fighting against the heavyweight GOAT, but that's simply not true. Stipe was great but he's effectively retired and going back to the octagon only for the money.
With that in mind, I'm not so sure if the pay would be higher for Stipe than for Aspinall. Tom made his name quite quickly and everybody knows he's the real challenge, defeating him would undoubtedly prove that Jones is the greatest in the world. I know which fight I'd prefer to see and I'm sure most of the UFC fans would agree.
You can look at the paper and you can clearly see the difference between the two, Jon Jones has a lot of advantages over Stipe Miocic and Jon Jones's age, Stipe Miocic is 41, and Jon Jones is 36 which is a clear deficit Reach advantage Miocic got Reach: 80.0" (203cm) while Jones has Reach: 84.5" (215cm), fighting record Stipe Miocic got 20-4-0 (Win-Loss-Draw) 14 KO, 1 Submission, and 5 Decision while Jon Jones has 27-1-0, 1 NC (Win-Loss-Draw) with 10 KO, 7 Submission, and 10 Decision, for sure in this kind of stats in paper Jon Jones would likely win and got the edge on the odds,
Two champion in one division is great. After all the other one is inactive and they can be activated when someone with a potential PPV money maker comes up.
Stipe is arguably the greatest in UFC HW but of course, Stipe isn't what he was at this point. They could have done this fight a long time ago but why did Dana have to wait?
No one wants to see Stipe fight at this point due to his age but because this is a legacy fight as Dana said, it would happen and make Jones the Goat.
They didn't make it easy for Tom to rise in UFC, he was on his winning streak and then matched to one of the toughest Blaydes.
People want to see Jones vs Aspinall of course, will Dana agree to be on the UK market? Most likely not
The UFC has already established the Jon Jones VS Stipe Miocic fight, for it can also generate a potential PPV, but what if the UFC is also establishing the Tom Aspinall for the winner of the Sergei Pavlovich VS Tom Aspinall fight will likely fight Whoever wins the someone who can Jon Jones VS Stipe Miocic
For sure many want to see a fight between Tom Aspinall and Jon Jones but what if the UFC is ahead of us and wants the fight at a later date and the UFC is still establishing a better PPV for the two to fight in a given time for sure,
I think Jones still has 'it' as a fighter. I kinda had my doubts before Gane, but after Gane he showed that he's still at the top of his game. And Gane is one of the best MMA heavy weights in the world. Nobody expected Jones to finish him that fast.
And we've already seen Jones at his worst and still managed to win. If he wins vs Aspinall then there's only one fight to make for Jones... A match up vs Ngannou.
I never expected his win over Cyril Gane, but he managed to win that in a fast surprising manner, and for sure Jon Jones has the fight IQ to win in a tight spot, but his game will suddenly get over as his age progresses, and now that he is injured I might say that he is likely prone to being injured at his age, and after the Tom Aspinall VS Jon Jones fight for sure it is a hard to see a Francis Ngannou for sure but if Jones gets into PFL maybe we can likely see it,