Current UFC interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall wants his next fight to be for the undisputed title: “Come on”

By Cole Shelton - January 4, 2024

UFC interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall appears to be frustrated with how the division is playing out.

Tom Aspinall

Jon Jones won the vacant undisputed heavyweight title in March with a first-round submission win over Ciryl Gane. He was then booked to defend his belt against Stipe Miocic at UFC 295 in November in Madison Square Garden. Unfortunately, Jones suffered an injury, and the UFC salvaged the card by making Tom Aspinall vs Sergei Pavlovich for the interim heavyweight title.

Aspinall went out and won the fight by first-round knockout, but since then, the UFC has been adamant that Jones vs. Miocic will be next. With that, Aspinall will be forced to be on the sidelines, or perhaps have to defend his interim title which he isn’t happy about.

“Surely if you’re interim champ, your next fight should be to fight for undisputed? Come on,” Tom Aspinall wrote on social media.

Not only does Tom Aspinall think his next fight should be for the undisputed title, he also sent out a couple of tweets questioning why Stipe Miocic is getting the title shot against Jon Jones anyway.

“Last time Stipe fought and won, GTA: San Andreas had just come out on PS2. He will fight next for the undisputed heavyweight title, ahead of me, who’s the interim champ, active and ranked #1 in the world right now. This makes me quite upset… Stipe is one of my favourites. Loads of respect to him his Résumé is far superior to mine rn. That being said the UFC has never been about this. It’s about who’s the best right now, and I believe that’s me and it’s only right I get to prove it #freeaspinall,” Tom Aspinall added.

Tom Aspinall certainly has a point that he should be the one to fight Jon Jones for the undisputed heavyweight title next time out. However, the UFC and Dana White seem set on Jones vs. Miocic happening next, which is starting to frustrate the interim champ.

Aspinall is 14-3 and coming off the KO win over Sergei Pavlovich. Before that, he scored a first-round TKO over Marcin Tybura in his first fight in a year after tearing his ACL just 15 seconds into his main event fight against Curtis Blaydes.

Since joining the UFC in 2020, Aspinall is 7-1 with his lone loss coming by injury. He also has recorded wins over Alexander Volkov, Serghei Spivac, Andrei Arlovski, Alan Baudot, and Jake Collier.