Tom Aspinall Claims He Received Death Threats From Jon Jones’ Fans

The internet is a wild place, as Tom Aspinall recently learned.

The UFC interim heavyweight champion has been involved in a polite feud with undisputed champ Jon Jones for a while now. Aspinall recently revealed that his online back-and-forth has provoked death threats from fans of “Bones.”

“People on the internet are wild,” Aspinall told Lord Ping (h/t MMA Mania). “You have to kind of see it for what it is. It’s not real life, a lot of it comes from jealousy. People don’t like to see other people do well, unfortunately that’s the way of the world. With a lot of love comes a lot of hate as well. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, unfortunately.

“I’m human so it affects me sometimes. But I try to just turn a blind eye to it and just crack on. The internet is a strange place. I clicked on my message requests by accident the other day and people are sending me death threats for wanting to fight Jon Jones, who’s the best in the world and it’s madness. You just think what the f—k is going on in your life that you want to say that you want to kill somebody else because they want to fight. It’s madness.”

Bones was forced out of his scheduled title defense against Stipe Miocic at UFC 295 this past November due to a torn pectoral muscle. A short-notice interim title fight was set up, where Aspinall knocked out Sergei Pavlovich in the first round.

Aspinall subsequently called for Jones to be stripped of the title. However, UFC CEO Dana White confirmed that Jones will remain champ and fight Miocic upon his return. Aspinall is now open to defending his interim strap but sees a lack of suitable opponents.

“With the Jon Jones palaver and all the politics around that, I was thinking maybe they’d give me some freak show kind of fight against Brock Lesnar, or maybe at UFC 300 they’d do something a bit out there like Alex Pereira, but that doesn’t look likely now,” Aspinall said. “I have absolutely no idea about my next move. I’m kind of waiting about.

“I absolutely would be ready for UFC 300, I believe now it’s about three months away and I have been training twice a day since a week after my last fight,” he continued. “So my body is in good shape right now. I could easily turn it up a few notches and be ready for UFC 300. But there isn’t really a realistic opponent. The only realistic ones would be Pereira or Lesnar and they’re not really realistic. Everyone else is kind of tied up right now so my hands are tied.”