Dana White explains why the UFC won’t be stripping Jon Jones of his heavyweight title: “The Stipe fight has to happen”

Don’t expect UFC CEO Dana White to entertain the idea of stripping Jon Jones of the UFC Heavyweight Championship.

Jones was expected to put his gold on the line against Stipe Miocic at UFC 295 on November 11. That didn’t end up happening, as “Bones” suffered a torn pectoral muscle while preparing for the fight. As a result, the bout was replaced with an interim title fight between Tom Aspinall and Sergei Pavlovich. Aspinall scored a knockout win in just over one minute.

Since his interim title win, Aspinall has been pounding the table to either fight Jones or Miocic next, insisting their legacy matchup has lost steam. He’s also shared his belief that Jones should be stripped of the UFC Heavyweight Championship.

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Dana White Will Not Strip Jon Jones Of UFC Gold

During the UFC Austin post-fight press conference, Dana White answered questions from media members. The UFC boss let it be known that the fight to make remains Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic (via MMAJunkie).

“The Stipe fight has to happen,” White said. “Both of those guys deserve it. You have the greatest mixed martial artist of all time vs. the greatest heavyweight of all time. They’ve paid their dues, they’ve done their things. These two want to fight each other, and it’s going to happen. Whoever wins, we’ll see what they decide to do after that, and then we’ll go from there.”

Aspinall clearly doesn’t want to wait around given how quickly the Pavolovich fight went. It’ll be interesting to see if another fight is presented to him, and whether or not he’d take it if he’s not going to get Jones or Stipe next. Once Jones has recovered from his injury, things figure to be quite interesting in the heavyweight division.