Chael Sonnen is confident Jon Jones fights Tom Aspinall.
Heavyweight champion Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) continued to dismiss interim champion Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) after he retained his belt with a TKO of Stipe Miocic at UFC 309.
Jones provided a positive update about his fighting future, but with Aspinall still the interim champion, Sonnen says that can only mean one thing.
“The UFC isn’t without leverage here,” Sonnen said on “Good Guy/Bad Guy” with Daniel Cormier. “If they’ve kept the belt around Tom, it’s to let Jon know, ‘It’s no problem to pull that one off your waist. We’ve got another one sitting right over here. We’ve got world champions – they’re real easy to make over here at the UFC.'”
UFC CEO Dana White shut down Jones’ ambition to fight light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira, which gives Sonnen even more confidence that it’s Aspinall or bust for Jones – even though Jones isn’t sold on fighting Aspinall.
“I’ll let you know what UFC stands – Jon has two choices: You fight Tom or you do not fight,” Sonnen said. “There is nobody else is going to be offered. In fact, we’ve got a name that came off the board (of possibilities) in terms of Alex Pereira.
“Dana put that to absolute rest, and when the oddsmakers put it as a 6-to-1 spread favoring Jones, that fight is gone. So Jon can sit out and not fight – that’s true. But he’s not going to be in a spot where he could fight someone else. It’s basically retire, (or) it’s fight Tom Aspinall.”
Jones recently posted a series of tweets in which he addressed the potential circumstances if he decides to retire. He continued to stick by his words of an Aspinall fight not adding anything to his legacy.
