Tom Aspinall is no longer the UFC heavyweight champion, and Jon Jones could not reach his phone fast enough.
Aspinall vacated the title early this week after an accident in training caused further damage to his right eye, the same eye Ciryl Gane double-poked at UFC 321 last October. He had a fight date agreed to. He was back sparring and feeling good. Then it happened again.
“I’m absolutely gutted,” Aspinall said. “I’ve chased this dream since I was 10 years old.” He is 33, his record sits at 15-3, and he made a point of clarifying that this is not retirement. He gave up the belt because he did not want to hold the division hostage while his own timeline stayed unknowable, and he knows exactly what that feels like from the other side.
The planned rematch with Gane is off.
Jon Jones spent the week dunking on X
Jones quote-posted a fan who argued that vacating proved Aspinall’s injury was never serious and that he simply did not want to face Gane. Jones added three words: “my sentiments exactly.”
He kept going, replying “Ouch” to another shot at Aspinall’s championship legitimacy and “Dude you are on fire” to a post about the Gane fight. Jones also accused the UFC of withholding information about Aspinall from fans.
Then Gable Steveson turned the volume up. At UFC 331 media day, Steveson said he had spoken with Jones directly: “I called Jon today, and he’s honored to have the opportunity to maybe come back.” Steveson trains with Jones one-on-one and fights Sean Sharaf on Saturday’s card.
Remember how we got here
Jones is 39. His record is 28-1 with one no-contest, and the lone loss is a 2009 disqualification. He vacated the heavyweight title and retired in June 2025 rather than unify against Aspinall, who was the interim champion at the time and had been waiting years for the fight.
He later confirmed he turned down roughly $30 million to take it. “I’m almost 40 years old now,” Jones said. “Just continuing to fight doesn’t make sense to me anymore.” He has since re-entered the UFC’s anti-doping testing pool, submitted samples in 2026, and openly campaigned for a spot on the promotion’s proposed White House card. Dana White’s response: “If I had to make odds, it’s a billion-to-1 odds I put Jon Jones on the White House card.”
Who is next, and should the UFC book Jones?
Gane answers the first question. He knocked out Alex Pereira at UFC Freedom 250 in June to claim the interim belt and will most likely be elevated to undisputed champion without stepping back into the cage. Alexander Volkov has the cleanest rankings case as the next challenger, with Sergei Pavlovich also in the conversation.
On the second question: no. Not for a title.
Jones turned down eight figures to defend that belt against the best heavyweight alive. He retired instead, spent a year telling anyone who asked that fighting no longer made sense to him, then reappeared within days of the division’s toughest matchup removing itself. Rewarding that with an immediate championship fight would tell every contender on the roster that patience is for suckers.
Book him a non-title fight if he truly wants back in. Make him beat a ranked heavyweight who has been showing up and taking risks. If Jones is the greatest of all time, one fight against a live opponent should not frighten him. If it does, that answers the question by itself.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.