Tom Aspinall is looking for clarity.
The Englishman, the UFC’s interim heavyweight champion since November 2023, has earned his shot at the real title — but has so far drawn a blank amid champion Jon Jones’ extended hiatus following his last bout in November 2024, and has no indication as to if and when he will ever set foot in the Octagon opposite one of the organisation’s greatest-ever competitors.
Jones added fuel to the fire in the recent days, with comments caught in an online video suggesting he was “done” — with speculation interpreting that as a bad omen for Aspinall’s title chase.
As for the interim champ, who approaches 12 months on the sidelines in the prime of his career, he says the wait is a worse experience than the injury-enforced layoff he experienced after seriously injuring his knee in his first fight with Curtis Blaydes back in the summer of 2022.
“It was obviously devastating to get injured in front of everybody and stuff,” Aspinall told Demetrious Johnson on his MightyCast podcast, as noted by MMA Fighting.
“But anyway, it was a tough time for me. Came back, took me a year with the rehab with the knee and everything… the physiotherapy and all that kind of stuff. So it was a tough couple of months mentally, but the once I started working towards getting back, I’d see the doctor, I’d see the physio, they’d be like, ‘In two weeks, this is what I want you doing in the gym. I want you squatting down to 90 degrees. I want you to be able to jump on this box. I want you to be able to run a mile and then you can start boxing, you can do this, that.’
“I always had a little goal to work towards.”
This time though, his inactivity stings.
“Now, I’ve been almost a year inactive with no prospects of anything apart from wait,” he said. “So now it’s actually a bit more of a tricky time for me mentally than it was then. Even people then were like, ‘Are you OK? How are you dealing with coming back?’ and stuff like that. I was like, yeah, I’m good.
“I’ve got this to look forward to, the doctor said I’ve got to do this in two weeks or in two months I can start grappling. I constantly had little goals to work towards. Whereas now it’s just like, ‘Just be ready and we’ll just let you know.’ It’s kind of difficult mentally, but this is the fight against Jon Jones. The fight is another thing, this is the tricky bit where I really have to stay switched on, stay motivated, and I’m trying my best. It’s tough sometimes.”
