There is a lot riding on this weekend’s UFC 309 main event.
The UFC returns to New York on Saturday night for the organisation’s annual event inside the world’s most famous arena, Madison Square Garden, with the featured attraction pitting heavyweight champion Jon Jones against the former champion Stipe Miocic in a bout that was delayed by a year after Jones sustained a pectoral injury just weeks out from their originally scheduled date last November.
Moreover, the future status of both fighters seems uncertain. Both Jones and particularly Miocic have been the subjects of retirement speculation, as interim champion Tom Aspinall (who is listed as the backup fighter for this weekend) waits in the wings for clarity on his situation.
Jones, though, has repeatedly distanced himself from a fight with Aspinall, suggesting in recent interviews that the Briton doesn’t come equipped with the required shine to make the potential fight worth his while.
And should he continue his career post-New York, Jones has suggested he may vacate the heavyweight title in pursuit of a ‘BMF’ encounter with light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira.
“It’d be cool to fight over the heavyweight championship but I would also willingly give up the heavyweight championship,” Jones said to SportsNet, as noted by MMA Insight. “I walked away from the light heavyweight championship. I’d love to walk away from this one as well on top, on [my] own terms, good head on your shoulders, making lots of money. I love the position that I’m in right now.
“Fighting Pereira for the ‘BMF’ belt, that would be cool. We both have two belts in two weight classes and the night we fought we’d both be fighting for our third belt, which would be the ‘BMF.’ How cool would that be?”
As for Aspinall, Jones added his opinion that the interim title is effectively meaningless.
“The interim championship shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” he said. “The only reason why there was an interim championship fight was because I got hurt and they needed to keep the importance of that Madison Square Garden event. But Sergei [Pavlovich] and Aspinall shouldn’t have been fighting for an interim title in the first place.
“They should have just been a replacement fight. A main event fight. I think making it an interim fight was premature. Now you have a bunch of confused people.
“When you have a dominant champion that’s been around as long as I have, there was no reason to put an interim championship belt out there. That’s the repercussion of Madison Square Garden last year.”
