Jon Jones has been talking a fair bit of trash about Tom Aspinall. So now is a perfect time for Daniel Cormier to get in the mix.
A couple of weeks ago, Aspinall made the first defense of his undisputed heavyweight title, taking on Ciryl Gane at UFC 321. The fight was a bit of a disaster as Aspinall struggled early in the first round, before suffering an eye poke that rendered him unable to continue and led to a no-contest. In the aftermath, Aspinall caught flak from fans and fellow fighters over not continuing, but none have been more vocal than former champion Jon Jones, who called Aspinall a quitter and overrated.
Fortunately, Aspinall has Cormier to come to his defense.
“When Jon Jones is getting called a duck, when Jon Jones is getting told that Tom Aspinall is the guy to beat him, he’s sitting back hoping that something happens to give him a reason to go and downplay that,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “We spoke about it prior to the fight; I told you guys that if Ciryl Gane won, Jon would constantly go, ‘That’s the guy you thought would beat me?’
“I don’t know that that finish isn’t more satisfying to a guy like Jones, because now he can almost guess what would have happened, even if that might not be true. Make no mistake about it, Ciryl Gane was finding a lot of success in Round 1, more than many people thought that he was going to. But Ciryl could have either continued to build, or Tom could have completely settled himself and turned that around.
“Guys, that was a four-minute round of a fight. They did not fight a long [enough] fight to really form an opinion. You couldn’t really form an opinion as strongly as so many have. I think the reason they’ve formed an opinion in the strong way that they did is that they’ve never seen Tom struggle at all.”
Jones certainly did form a strong opinion, saying he he learned a lot from the four minutes of the Gane fight and calling Aspinall a “one-trick pony” that could only throw a 1-2 combination. And while Gane was in the cage with Aspinall more than his previous four opponents were combined, Cormier insists that this is posturing from Jones.
“Jones said in that fight he was able to pick up on a lot of his patterns,” Cormier said. “Again, guys, it was four minutes. Four minutes! We don’t know what the next 21 minutes would have looked like. We just don’t. But we as fighters, when we are watching someone that’s a potential opponent, or someone that becomes your opponent, you look for holes. You don’t give them credit for the things that they do, and that’s why, I feel, that the moment I started doing television in 2012 and I was tasked with calling these guy’s fights and working at the desk and trying to be as neutral as I possibly could, I became a better fighter. …
“Jones is watching Aspinall only as a potential opponent, so in that he’s going, ‘Oh, that’s bad. And this is bad. Well, he doesn’t do this very well.’ Then he finds that one thing he can give him credit for, but everything else sucks. The jiu-jitsu sucks, the wrestling sucks, it’s a good 1-2. But it’s hard, because he can’t turn that off. He can’t turn off that one day he might fight Aspinall. But you have to look at it with a clear mind. But again, commentary taught me that, not me the fighter. Because I could never give guys credit before I started calling their fights. …
“Maybe Tom Aspinall isn’t what Jon built him up to be in his mind prior to that fight, but I don’t know that we saw enough to form an opinion of his overall game in four minutes. It’s just the truth!”
There’s also the matter of the beef between Jones and Aspinall. While Aspinall has largely been respectful of the former champion, some heat did start to form between the two of them when Jones drug his feet about unifying the UFC titles in a fight with Aspinall. In the end, Jones retired from the sport instead, but he has seemingly enjoyed the turn many fans have made against Aspinall over the past couple of weeks, something Cormier doesn’t find fair.
“Is Jon Jones being a little bit too harsh?” Cormier asked. “Can we really form that strong an opinion based on four minutes? Does Tom Aspinall not deserve a little grace? And are we reacting only in this way because we’ve never seen him struggle at all? And also, how much can you struggle in four minutes? He had a bloody nose, and I think because he had that bloody nose, it made people feel, ‘Oh my god, this dude’s in trouble.’ Again, still 21 minutes left in the fight.
“I watched Khabib Nurmagomedov lose a round to Justin Gaethje, and end up submitting him afterward and overtaking the fight. A lot can change between minute 4 and minute 7, 9, 15, 21, all the way to 25.”
Hater. Jon Jones criticizes Tom Aspinall after performance against Ciryl Gane: ‘He’s a one-trick pony.’
Hater Part 2. ‘He immediately quit’: Jon Jones questions Tom Aspinall’s heart when he faces adversity.
Schadenfreude. Oscar de la Hoya rips Dana White and ‘scumbag’ TKO over alleged fight-fixing scandal.
Extradition. Ex-NFL player Antonio Brown extradited to U.S. on attempted murder charge for alleged shooting at influencer boxing event.
Accident. ONE champion Reug Reug involved in ‘serious car accident.’
Break. ‘If he kicks again, I lose the fight’: Valter Walker reveals how he fought through broken leg to get win at UFC 321.
Waldo Cortes-Acosta interview.
Michael Bisping previews UFC 322.
Kamaru Usman and Henry Cejudo with Dana White.
Stipe Miocic tries tennis.
SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE
And Alex Pereira had an entire MMA Hall of Fame career.
Look at how small Fedor is. #GOAT
Because there were rumors circulating.
I so rarely have occasion to say this but here it goes: Daniel Cormier is 100 percent correct. All the fans ripping Aspinall over this are being ridiculous and the idea that he quit because he was losing is completely absurd. Gane may well have gone on to win, but he also just as easily could have still lost that fight.
And the people coming out of the woodwork saying this fight proves Jones would roll through Aspinall are even more ridiculous. Jones could 100 percent beat Aspinall. But he also could absolutely lose that fight, and it’s one of the reasons Jones didn’t accept it, even when the UFC met his asking price. Jon Jones fights nothing like Ciryl Gane and as everyone should know, styles make fights.
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