Ben Askren can't understand why Dana White is 'playing along' with Jon Jones
Ben Askren thinks Dana White is giving Jon Jones too much leeway.
Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) hasn’t competed since capturing the vacant UFC heavyweight title with a quick submission of Ciryl Gane in January 2023. He was scheduled to defend his title against Stipe Miocic at UFC 295, but the fight was scrapped after Jones tore his pectoral muscle.
Meanwhile, Tom Aspinall claimed the interim title with a knockout of Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 295. He has since defended his interim title against Curtis Blaydes last month at UFC 304, and Jones is yet to return. Jones’ fight with Miocic is expected to be rebooked for November, but Askren thinks Jones should be unifying his belt with Aspinall instead.
White has heavily defended Jones, dubbing him as the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter, as well as the greatest of all time. Askren thinks White is giving Jones preferential treatment.
“I almost feel like maybe Jon’s got some dirt on Dana or something because Dana generally wouldn’t put up with this type of behavior,” Askren said on his “Funky and the Champ” show with Daniel Cormier. “This is what the UFC has been founded on whereas boxing isn’t, is, ‘We want the best guys to fight, we want to see who the actual best guy is, we don’t want to waste time with shenanigans, we don’t want to pad records to go to 40-0. We don’t do that. That’s what boxing does. In the UFC, we put the best guys in there, and we see who wins.’
“The fact that Jon – I don’t know if ‘allowed’ is the right term, but that Dana is playing along and letting him and Stipe fight, when Stipe is going to be close to four years since he’s had a fight. And you have this young, interim champion who, he’s a beast. He smashes people. The fact that they won’t put them in there together, and then there’s this obvious guarantee that Jon beats Stipe and then says, ‘I’m done,’ and then you never get to see that.”
White hopes the winner of Jones vs. Miocic unifies the belt with Aspinall. Jones is currently ranked No. 3 in the UFC’s pound-for-pound rankings behind light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira and lightweight champion Islam Makhachev, which set White off.