UFC CEO Dana White is hellbent on booking Stipe Miocic vs. Jon Jones.
That’s why matchmakers were allowed to pit interim vampire heavyweight champion, Tom Aspinall, against No. 4-ranked title contender, Curtis Blaydes, for the UFC 304 pay-per-view (PPV) co-main event later this month in Manchester.
But former 265-pound titleholder, Daniel Cormier, believes the promotion may be forced to rethink its plans for Miocic vs. Jones if Aspinall can deliver a spectacular performance against Blaydes, which in turn would prompt a “fan uprising.”
Perhaps “DC” simply had a mishap, falling off a ladder and injuring his head.
“Is he drunk? Did he hurt his head? Did he fall off a ladder or something like this? Is he working on a comedy routine? I ask because he thinks that Tom Aspinall, with a proper victory, could take Stipe’s fight against Jon Jones away,” former UFC middleweight, Chael Sonnen, said on his YouTube channel (transcribed by MMA News). “He can’t be serious, right? He said with a proper performance, gotta be an absolute drubbing … Aspinall’s gotta go out there in front of his people and whip Curtis Blaydes, and there could be such an uprising by you, the crowd, that UFC would have no choice but to give Tom the fight.”
Jones, who currently holds the heavyweight crown, was originally booked to throw down against Miocic at UFC 295 in New York. Unfortunately, a serious training injury delayed their long-overdue showdown, prompting Aspinall to vent his frustrations on social media.
Neither Aspinall nor Cormier have the power to initiate any changes.
Sonnen expressed his disbelief, questioning whether the person in question genuinely believed what they had said. He explained that in a typical situation, those kinds of mistakes would be edited out, allowing for another chance to clarify. However, since they were live, there was no opportunity for that. Sonnen speculated that perhaps the individual misspoke, as he couldn’t fathom them actually meaning what they said. He emphasized that nothing that could happen to Curtis Blaydes would be worse than what happened to Sergei Pavlovich. Additionally, the level of attention and interest in this match would make a potential victory by Tom even more extraordinary. Sonnen found it absurd to suggest that such a victory could interfere with a contractual agreement for a fight.
Plot twist: Blaydes wins (again) and none of this matters after UFC 304.
