Dana White Open to Tom Aspinall Defending Interim Title

Dana White has slightly altered his stance on the Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight title picture.

Heavyweight champ Jon Jones (27-1) was scheduled to defend his strap against former champ Stipe Miocic (20-4) at UFC 295 last month but was forced out due to an injury. The Las Vegas-based promotion then swiftly put together a short-notice interim title fight where Tom Aspinall (14-3) shocked the world with a Round 1 knockout of Sergei Pavlovich (18-2).

White subsequently said that Aspinall would go to fight the winner of Jones vs. Miocic in a title unification bout despite the Englishman’s call to strip “Bones” of the title. However, the UFC head honcho has now seemingly altered course, hinting at Aspinall potentially defending his interim strap while awaiting Jones’ return.

“Aspinall could possibly fight again,” White told TNT Sports. “I don’t know. We’ll see how this plays out going into the next year, but Jones and Stipe, the fight, they both deserve it. Jon Jones got injured. There’s nothing he can do about it. We’ll see what happens in 2024. If Aspinall wants to fight before that fight happens, why not? Why not let him defend it? We’ll figure it out.

“If you look at what Stipe has accomplished in this sport, what he’s done, where he’s at in his career, he wants the Jon Jones fight, and I get it,” White added. “Arguably the greatest heavyweight of all time vs. the greatest mixed martial artist of all time. He wants that fight, it’s a big legacy fight for both guys. He wants Jones—and Jones wants Stipe. While Jon Jones is injured, if [Aspinall] wants to defend the title, we’d absolutely do it.”

While No. 7 ranked Jailton Almeida had called for an interim title shot against Aspinall, he has now been booked against No. 5 ranked Curtis Blaydes for UFC 299 in March. With Pavlovich and Miocic occupying the No. 3 and 4 spots respectively, second-ranked Ciryl Gane appears to be the likely matchup for Aspinall for a potential interim title defense.