Jon Jones is widely considered one of the greatest fighters in the history of combat sports, but his legacy won’t suddenly come into question if he retires before facing off with interim UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall.
That’s according to Matt Brown, who has long argued that Jones earned the right to call his shot after spending the better part of the past 16 years running roughshod over anybody and everybody UFC threw at him. Jones is currently preparing for a showdown against Stipe Miocic, with all signs pointing toward a November date at UFC 309 in New York.
Meanwhile, Aspinall has ratcheted up his attempts to lure Jones into a fight instead after capturing the interim heavyweight title in 2023 and then defending it with a knockout of Curtis Blaydes. Of course, Brown understands Aspinall’s desire for that fight, but he believes the narrative that Jones is somehow avoiding Aspinall won’t last long enough to really matter.
“The fact is, it will be forgotten,” Brown said on The Fighter vs. The Writer. “No matter what Tom does. If Jon retires after he beats Stipe, we’re in the age of news is news for a day. Maybe for a day or two, there will be some people on Reddit saying Jon was scared of Tom or whatever.
“By next week or whatever … he’ll still be the greatest ever. No one’s going to be like, ‘Oh, Jon’s not the greatest ever because he didn’t fight Tom Aspinall.’ I don’t think a single person’s going to say that. They’re just going to talk a little bit of silly stuff for a couple of days and it will be completely forgotten. Just like [Georges St-Pierre].”
While not exactly the same situation, St-Pierre returned from a long hiatus and beat Michael Bisping to become undisputed UFC middleweight champion back in 2017. There were immediate expectations that St-Pierre would then move on to fight interim champion Robert Whittaker, who sat dormant upon winning his title several months earlier.
Instead, just 34 days after beating Bisping, St-Pierre relinquished the title due to health issues and never returned to compete again. Even dealing with a truncated timeline compared to Jones, who has been out of action for over a year due to a torn pectoral muscle, St-Pierre was never called coward because he didn’t get to unify the belts in a fight against Whittaker.
“Next week, it was all forgotten,” Brown said. “I didn’t even remember that he turned down to fight Robert Whittaker. I didn’t even remember that being talked about at the time. I was deep in the sport at that point.
“It’s just one of those things where everybody loves to put their own little opinions on things for a day or two, and it’s forgotten about the next day.”
Aspinall can certainly keep pushing for the Jones fight to happen, and that only raises his profile as he continues to call himself the real UFC heavyweight champion. Aspinall may even have a valid argument that he’s already the best heavyweight on the UFC roster, but Brown knows that never seemed like a goal Jones was chasing anyway.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember Jon ever saying, ‘I’m out here now to try to be the greatest heavyweight,’” Brown said. “He’s like, ‘I’m the greatest fighter, I got that in the bag. I’m the greatest fighter of all-time. I’m going to fight a couple heavyweight fights. Yeah, I might be a little bit picky about who I fight. I’m the greatest fighter of all-time, bitch. I get to pick my fights now.’
“I don’t remember him ever saying, ‘I’m out here to attempt to prove I can also be the greatest heavyweight.’ He’s like, ‘No, I’m moving up to get a couple paydays, getting some big fights, having some fun, not have to cut weight, and move on with my life.’”
Whether Jones dismantles Miocic in November or not, Brown admits his opinion of the former light heavyweight champion won’t really change.
There are other reasons why Jones may have tainted his legacy through past actions, but Brown expects that Aspinall is ultimately nothing more than a small blip on the radar and a distraction that won’t last forever.
“He’s the greatest,” Brown said of Jones. “The only debate about whether he’s the greatest or not is when you talk about the banned substances. That’s literally the only argument you have against it. I don’t think there’s any other argument. We all know Jon is the greatest of all-time.”
