Jon Jones has officially retired from the sport and Tom Aspinall is now the undisputed UFC heavyweight champion.
That’s according to UFC CEO Dana White, who broke the news during the UFC Baku post-fight press conference on Saturday following the promotion’s debut event in Azerbaijan. The stunning news came after Jones apparently called the UFC to tell them he was hanging up his gloves.
“Jon Jones called us last night and retired,” White said. “Jon Jones is officially retired. Tom Aspinall is the heavyweight champion of the UFC.”
White had just recently said that he was setting a deadline to book Jones vs. Aspinall after months of back and forth on whether or not the fight would actually happen.
It appears that was all Jones needed to hear to make the call that he’s not coming back and he’s decided to retire from the sport.
Just days ago, Jones stated that “right now, I could really care less about fighting” but he also hesitated to actually use the word retirement when it came to his career. Obviously, Jones eventually made the decision to call it a career and allow the UFC’s heavyweight division to move on without him.
Jones’ retirement comes seven months after his win over Stipe Miocic and his indecision put the heavyweight division on hold but White admits he doesn’t have any regrets about allowing the now former champion the time he needed to decide on his future.
“Do I regret the time that I gave him? Listen if you look at what he’s accomplished in the sport, no [I don’t regret it],” White said. “It is what it is.”
As far as Aspinall goes, White praised him for his continued patience during the entire ordeal as the UFC attempted to book him against Jones in a heavyweight title unification bout.
While it’s certainly not the outcome he wanted with a chance to fight and possibly defeat an opponent many consider to be the greatest of all-time, Aspinall still gets to become champion with a bright future ahead of him.
“I obviously feel bad for Tom that he lost all that time and obviously money but we’ll make it up to him,” White said. “Tom Aspinall’s a good guy. He’s been incredible through this whole process that we’ve gone through. He’s been willing to do anything, fight him anywhere at any time and do this and now he’s like ‘I’ll fight anybody — you tell me who and I’ll fight them.’
“Aspinall’s been great. He’s going to be a great heavyweight champion for us. I’m excited to work with him.”
There’s no word on when Aspinall might actually get to compete again but the most likely contenders in line to face him are two-time title challenger Ciryl Gane or Jailton Almeida, who is riding a two-fight win streak in the division.
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