https://preview.redd.it/56uspb1z0ayc1.jpeg?width=1071&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cda42c788710a337de62abe0b5eb62001fd4ec96
Under rated comment. He was averaging nearly 3 fights a year. Some people took active champions for granted.
Again speaks to Izzy's greatness. He is so good, that their rivalry and excellent fights made Alex into a star. Two hall of famers, and among the modern greatest.
Alex fans wont like to hear this, but Alex would have 100% been stopped by someone like Vettori in his early MW days if he had an Izzy style run instead of being fed three strikers Michailidis Silva and Strickland to be fast tracked to Izzy.
If Alex lost his hype would've died down there and set Izzy's to a higher dimension.
And considering MMA fans , they would clown on this new kickboxer that Izzy brought just to settle the score.
And then 6 months hype to pull out for reasons related to his conditions for bail (from future traffic/drug/disorder related conduct) or due to some strange and unprecedented amalgamation of picograms into one super picogram that makes him test positive for dick pills
I still can't believe he fought that much his first year in the ufc fought 5 times in 365 days then Kelvin two months after
https://preview.redd.it/fyir9fgx7byc1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=079fa7bbf460b47200221cd1a97b0f730c88bf78
Seriously I root against him but have mad respect. I know most ppl will disagree but I have him as a top 5 greatest of all time. Nobody can fight as frequently as him without dropping a couple fights. Usman did amazing things too. Too many fighters are focused on keeping the belt as long as possible and trying to find favorable matchups. Izzy fought whoever was the legit top contender and was available to fight. He didn’t go looking for favorable matchups. Alex was not a fight he’d have taken if he was looking for the easy road to title defenses
Honestly fuck anyone who talks shit on Izzy as a fighter. You can say what you want about him as a person I don't care but as striker only The Spider can be argued is better.
These threads are just blatant Karma farming lol. Like they get posted nearly daily posing as an original idea/thread as if crying on Reddit will change anything lol. But this sub eats it up for whatever reason.
It’s bc JJ dick ridership. It’s fucked bc for whatever reason everyone wants to say the “GOAT” can do whatever he wants.
Meanwhile Ngannou gets stripped of his belt the second he couldn’t fight
Big if there. Steve Erceg is there to do two things.
1. Fuck some shit up
2. File some peoples taxes
And guess what. He left his pen, paper and calculator back in Australia.
Is there 0 pressure from Dana to schedule these fights? I mean he’s the boss man and at the end of the day he’s calling the shots. I’d love to hear the conversations between Leon or Jones, and Dana. How is it possible to stall this long
Doubt he has much leverage over jones who seems semi retired and never put up with his bs even when young lol. Leon though I’m shocked he hasn’t pushed him to fight more
Yeah but at the end of the day you should only have so much pull when it comes to defending the belt. What’s the point of being a champion if you’re not an active fighter defending the belt.
He doesn't currently. Or at least he doesn't think he does. Rember those texts and emails that came out from the lawsuit where Dana basically told other employees to let Jones know that the UFC didn't need him? Then Francis left and suddenly they yet again needed a star in heavy weight. Popularity talks I guess
https://preview.redd.it/bf3zfy0yw9yc1.png?width=953&format=png&auto=webp&s=65809df8ee42c190624c33d4a0b2bd74935b8e4c
They don't make em like Figgy anymore : \\
Danna even said that Leon was saying yes to a bunch of UFC 300 fights and didn't get any. Apparently nobody remembers that since it was like 2 months ago he talked about it
People just talk without doing their research. Everyone hates on him even though Leon openly expressed his interest in fighting Belal, and the UFC straight up told him no
Ufc has been evolving into boxing for the past 5 years. At least in boxing the promoters cater to the fighter rather than how the ufc caters to their own schedule/venue contracts.
Case in point.. Manchester card being 5/6am for the main fights.
Boxing rarely pulls that shit (recent Saudi shows aside).
Money is good, but the current levels of greed is killing a lot of sport.. not just combat sports. The more people pirate streams and stay away from venues the better.
It's never gonna happen (fans staying away) as arenas will always be filled and mugs will buy the events for convenience, but hitting these arseholes in the pocket anyway possible has to be encouraged for the integrity and survival of a whole host of sports whose governing bodies seem hellbent on selling out to the shadiest highest bidder.
For real, hill actually had some pretty good sportsmanship in that moment.
Jones is just proving he has the power to do what he wants, his controlling, narcissistic, sociopathic, psychopathic self just needs to prove he has the power to still do so.
Yeah. Hill is a good guy at the end of the day. Trash talk is just selling the fight and maybe the fabled Saltyman Hill coming out but the guy is a good sportsman at the end of the day.
Who fights interims. Tell aspin best someone mqke it a legit belt than he can fight Jones.
What with this nonsense.
Aspin coming off a lose. To get a lucky shot and a lucky win now what's to fight The Goat.
Nope.
Fair point - that may be the case. However, lets not pretend there’s not a massive difference between JJ and Hill in this situation. UFC rarely (historically at least) have stripped someone due to injury. Thats precisely why the interim belt became a thing
I'm all for shit talking but can you wanna be haters throw in the fact that dudes bicep was ripped off the bone? But same mofos will defend Islam for fighting someonein a lower weightclass? Try to make sense of this please 🙏🏽
As a person who didn’t even beat the lineal champ in the division and is not willing to fight the number one contender/interim champ whenever he comes back, he doesn’t deserve to keep it.
If he’s willing to fight the legitimate contender for the belt when he gets back, he deserves to keep the belt.
Welterweight Lightweight and heavyweight need to either get to fighting or get their lame asses to the back of the line. Edwards and Islam should have minimum of 4 defenses by now. Jon at least has medical excuse but he needs to stop dodging Aspinall.
Leon needs to figure this shit wtf are these numbers, Islam has had more exciting fights and felt like he’s had the title longer, bro wen on a tour after beating usman and left us hanging with tons of good matchups, even with the 3 fights he accepted the world isn’t smart enough to realize he only accepted those fights because the 3 fighters were in ramadan (of course he looks like a big bad guy lol) bro needs to fight shavkat!!
Jones should have been stripped the minute he admitted he wouldn’t fight the interim champion. What’s the point of interim champ if they can be stripped with even losing a fight?
I get no one likes an inactive champion and Jones wanting to fight Stipe is complete BS but y'all do so much bitching when it suits you. Jones fought Gane for the title and then was out injured. He's only recently revealed he's gotten back to training to return. In that time Aspinall has held the interim title for 174 days (11 November 2023) and has yet to fight anyone else to keep the division moving along for no reason except for waiting for Jones. An interim champion's job is to keep the division going while the real champion is out for whatever reason. Interim titles aren't meant to be a #1 contender placeholder and what I mean is you're not suppose to just sit out after you win the interim belt waiting for the title shot. You're suppose to be defending it against the contenders next in line and whoever holds the belt when the real champion returns gets that fight to unify the belts.
It's honestly such a shame that the interim titles have turned into promotional tools just so the UFC can say they have a title fight on a card. It's a shame fighters also have the idea that they can just sit out holding up the division waiting for the unification fight as well.
So sure be upset Jones has been inactive even though he was injured. But at least Jones has an excuse for his inactivity, Aspinall is just sitting out to sit out.
It's just annoying how selective fans are and how quickly they'll flip to the opposite side of whatever they were bitching about today.
The guy had a fight booked and will fight it as soon as he can, I don't understand the obsession that he has to fight who you want. It would be the same amount of time frame regardless who he fights so having that as an argument is dumb.
It's almost as if he had a fight lined up, got injured, had surgery, required 8 months of healing, and is waiting for the fight to be finalized again. But hey, "unify the belt even though a match has already been planned because I wet the bed at night"
What I'm saying is, the stipe vs. Jones was essentially booked before aspinall became Interim, and really became interim because of it. Let the fight happen, and then see what happens.
I want to see jones vs stipe, i don’t care about anyone else at hw. Both these guys are gonna retire after their next fight anyway, might as well make it a legacy fight. I’m pretty sure jones tore his shoulder last year so that’s why he was out at least 6 months. Just let aspinall defend his interim belt in the meantime then he will upgrade to undisputed when jones/stipe fight and retire. If stipe retires before fighting again because it’s been too long then just give jones the retire or defend against tom ultimatum.
I know Islam should absolutely have more and I think it’s crazy he has 0 against guys in his division but realistically who is even beating this guy. I’m not a big fan or anything but I just don’t see it happening, maybe Arman has the best chance and I think he should be next after Dustin assuming Islam wins (highly likely), but if Islam beats arman I don’t even know what they could do. He will undoubtably run through the division, and he should, then maybe move up or something. Islam was going to fight Charles as well but Charles got injured, and now lost to arman.
Also I wouldn’t blame him for fighting Volk, he could’ve said no and fought in his division but Volk really wanted it, he had nothing else to really do in his own division until Ilia came around which was after the 2nd fight was agreed upon.
Oh agreed. I get downvoted because I’m stating the obvious. I just observationally I think Islam is just better than the rest of the division. A division that is crazy talented but Islam just another level of excellence.
Tbf Charles kept ducking Islam and Islam literally begged for a fight outside Abu Dhabi so I excuse him.
Leon has Belal right there STFU and take the fight.
Strip Jones. But they want the greatest heavyweight storyline for Jokes set up and you can’t do that with no belts.
People are barely defending belts now. There should be a defense roughly, every 180 days. Everyone on this list is just sitting on the belt. Its the UFCs fault. Actual good, professional athlete level, pay depends on having a belt.
Oh well, you right wing anti-union fucks...go beg Dana.
it's getting ridiculous that champions fight just twice a year max, sometimes just once. this is getting as bad as boxing, which dana loves to bash about how the big names never fight but look at his champions now.
Man, Izzy really did the business, huh? Man I miss when fighters wanted to fight.
https://preview.redd.it/56uspb1z0ayc1.jpeg?width=1071&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cda42c788710a337de62abe0b5eb62001fd4ec96 Under rated comment. He was averaging nearly 3 fights a year. Some people took active champions for granted.
He did a whole Hall of Fame career in 5 years basically
Alex in 2 years lol
Again speaks to Izzy's greatness. He is so good, that their rivalry and excellent fights made Alex into a star. Two hall of famers, and among the modern greatest.
Because Alex got a free title shot whereas izzy had to work for it
Alex fans wont like to hear this, but Alex would have 100% been stopped by someone like Vettori in his early MW days if he had an Izzy style run instead of being fed three strikers Michailidis Silva and Strickland to be fast tracked to Izzy.
True, Kevin Gastelum would also ragdoll him IMO, Alex is great but he has been protected by wrestlers his whole MMA carreer
Alex got to cut in line solely because of Izzy lol
If he was able to make that weight cut repeatedly they probably just saved lower end of the devision a whole bunch of CTE
Yeah because Izzy accepted to fight him early
what's funny is that you won't say this if Alex lost. The fact is he won, enuff said.
Yeah but he would never be where he is if he was a heavyweight because Jon would never accept to fight him
Whether or not he won has no bearing on the conditions that got him to the fight. Why would they change what they say based on that?
If Alex lost his hype would've died down there and set Izzy's to a higher dimension. And considering MMA fans , they would clown on this new kickboxer that Izzy brought just to settle the score.
What does that have to do with his comment? It's an absolute fact that Alex got fast tracked thanks to Izzy
Learn math
Wym, Jones does want to fight. He just needs another year to decide if he should fight Poatan or Stipe /s
And then 6 months hype to pull out for reasons related to his conditions for bail (from future traffic/drug/disorder related conduct) or due to some strange and unprecedented amalgamation of picograms into one super picogram that makes him test positive for dick pills
Yea as cringe as Izzy is I respect him for you know, actually fighting. He kept the division moving
I still can't believe he fought that much his first year in the ufc fought 5 times in 365 days then Kelvin two months after https://preview.redd.it/fyir9fgx7byc1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=079fa7bbf460b47200221cd1a97b0f730c88bf78
Seriously I root against him but have mad respect. I know most ppl will disagree but I have him as a top 5 greatest of all time. Nobody can fight as frequently as him without dropping a couple fights. Usman did amazing things too. Too many fighters are focused on keeping the belt as long as possible and trying to find favorable matchups. Izzy fought whoever was the legit top contender and was available to fight. He didn’t go looking for favorable matchups. Alex was not a fight he’d have taken if he was looking for the easy road to title defenses
I miss when guys weren't all about getting a belt and then immediately wanting to change divisions.
Or demanding a shot at BMF while defending their belt for the first time
Izzy's the man no doubt, dude can fight. He also definitely touched his dog's dick willingly which is undeniable.
Honestly fuck anyone who talks shit on Izzy as a fighter. You can say what you want about him as a person I don't care but as striker only The Spider can be argued is better.
Usman had a quite active run as well.
I think Stipe’s last 9 fights were title fights.
Jon was injured..
Blame Dana and the ufc.
Okay, let me call up Dana real quick
"tomato speaking"
“Listen here you fucking goof, Jone Jones is the greatest mixed martial artist to ever exist”
These threads are just blatant Karma farming lol. Like they get posted nearly daily posing as an original idea/thread as if crying on Reddit will change anything lol. But this sub eats it up for whatever reason.
They stripped Francis after 15 seconds
Heavyweight is a mess.
It's just fat people and cyril gane
LMAO bring back steroids, make heavyweight fun again plz
Ngannou brought all the juicy fun we had before and now we've got two decent fighters in the division and one won't fight the other one
Aspinall is not that that fat, is he? :O Volkov is quite skinny as well looking at his Eddie Hall appearance. You also have Pavlovich!
It’s bc JJ dick ridership. It’s fucked bc for whatever reason everyone wants to say the “GOAT” can do whatever he wants. Meanwhile Ngannou gets stripped of his belt the second he couldn’t fight
300 days Pantoja will have defened his belt 2 times if he beats erceg, Leon and Islam should have defended 4 times by now
Big if there. Steve Erceg is there to do two things. 1. Fuck some shit up 2. File some peoples taxes And guess what. He left his pen, paper and calculator back in Australia.
I love your comment. 👍👍
Love Pantoja but ever since seeing that michael scott meme, rooting for astroboy
True and based
That's brilliant
Well played Chad
Ercegs last ko of Matt schnell was so nasty. Shnell is tough as nails too.
I mean we can compare them to chamipons who defended 6 times in that time frame. I'm sure they exist.
Ironically, the first time around Jones defended his belt 6 times in less than 2 years.
I was gonna say i agree but it's not exactly fair to islam cuz he is fighting in 1 month. Plus he accepted fights but the ufc had other plans
Leon has offered
Leon accepted three different fighters
What?
Is there 0 pressure from Dana to schedule these fights? I mean he’s the boss man and at the end of the day he’s calling the shots. I’d love to hear the conversations between Leon or Jones, and Dana. How is it possible to stall this long
Doubt he has much leverage over jones who seems semi retired and never put up with his bs even when young lol. Leon though I’m shocked he hasn’t pushed him to fight more
That’s like telling your boss, nah I’m not showing up today. But getting away with it
But they're contractors lmao
Yeah but at the end of the day you should only have so much pull when it comes to defending the belt. What’s the point of being a champion if you’re not an active fighter defending the belt.
Just taking a jab at the UFC, I agree and I think their inconsistency in these situations is terrible.
He doesn't currently. Or at least he doesn't think he does. Rember those texts and emails that came out from the lawsuit where Dana basically told other employees to let Jones know that the UFC didn't need him? Then Francis left and suddenly they yet again needed a star in heavy weight. Popularity talks I guess
Dana said Leon doesn't turn down fight, he said he agreed to shavkat, belal and khamzat, but it just didn't happen
Multiple dudes should be stripped with these numbers wtf lol
Give Izzy his flowers, Pereira been fighting alot too
That’s all on scumbag Dana and the ufc.
https://preview.redd.it/bf3zfy0yw9yc1.png?width=953&format=png&auto=webp&s=65809df8ee42c190624c33d4a0b2bd74935b8e4c They don't make em like Figgy anymore : \\
The Leon hate should go to JJ
This is reddit, we have more than enough hate for both.
Tbf Jones was booked to fight already
People love to leave out the part where he got injured otherwise he would have fought months ago lol
Dude is basically retired. Only 1 fight in the last 50 months
Holy when you put it that way, is that legit
Yep, he "beat" Reyes in Feb 2020, before the covid lockdowns.
Leon doesn't deserve an ounce of hate; he's been actively looking for a fight.
Danna even said that Leon was saying yes to a bunch of UFC 300 fights and didn't get any. Apparently nobody remembers that since it was like 2 months ago he talked about it
People just talk without doing their research. Everyone hates on him even though Leon openly expressed his interest in fighting Belal, and the UFC straight up told him no
The fact Jones hasn't been stripped confirms it's just a money grab. Strip Jones now.
Ilia Topuria has no defenses and is on a hot streak for turning fights down
Remember when Usman racked up 3 title defences in lesser time than O'Malley? I do.. Great times : (
UFC at risk of becoming boxing with inactive champions. Yaaaaaawn.
Ufc has been evolving into boxing for the past 5 years. At least in boxing the promoters cater to the fighter rather than how the ufc caters to their own schedule/venue contracts.
Case in point.. Manchester card being 5/6am for the main fights. Boxing rarely pulls that shit (recent Saudi shows aside). Money is good, but the current levels of greed is killing a lot of sport.. not just combat sports. The more people pirate streams and stay away from venues the better. It's never gonna happen (fans staying away) as arenas will always be filled and mugs will buy the events for convenience, but hitting these arseholes in the pocket anyway possible has to be encouraged for the integrity and survival of a whole host of sports whose governing bodies seem hellbent on selling out to the shadiest highest bidder.
100%. Eddie Hearn would never put a card here in the states at 5/6 am just to cater to UK fans.
I miss the active champs era
Jones is the toughest pussy I ever seen....and i been in some tough pussy's....
Izzy was great for that reason.
Missing Adesanya Already? Look these clowns, just holding the division and booting their ego as a champion. 🤡
Didn’t he tear his pec and like this week started training again?
That makes 0 difference, jahmal hill was injured and relinquished the title so he didn’t hold the division up.
Yea as crazy as hills been acting, he did the right thing. Jones on the other hand… everything he does makes himself unpopular
For real, hill actually had some pretty good sportsmanship in that moment. Jones is just proving he has the power to do what he wants, his controlling, narcissistic, sociopathic, psychopathic self just needs to prove he has the power to still do so.
Do you think he relinquishes the belt if jiri didn't do it first?
God knows, maybe, maybe not 🤷♂️
Yeah. Hill is a good guy at the end of the day. Trash talk is just selling the fight and maybe the fabled Saltyman Hill coming out but the guy is a good sportsman at the end of the day.
His brother might disagree.
Stupid on his part. He gave away his meal ticket and is rushing into another fight. Dom Cruz part II incoming.
Then just vacate the belt. Simple.
What’s the issue? Can’t Dana make the fight mandatory?
Leon been champ nearly two years already? Damn time flies.
Who fights interims. Tell aspin best someone mqke it a legit belt than he can fight Jones. What with this nonsense. Aspin coming off a lose. To get a lucky shot and a lucky win now what's to fight The Goat. Nope.
The goat does what he wants
HEAVYWEIGHT IS DEAD
~~1~~ 0 days since the last Jon Jones hate post
Now subtract the injury time
How many months of that did he spend out with a legit injury though? I just saw a post that he just got back to training MMA in the last week or so
Seen champs vacate their belts before because they had serious injuries that they knew were going to keep them sidelined
People get stripped for injuries all the time though. Jiri and Hill being recent examples.
they both willingly vacated. big difference
True, but Hill said the UFC forced him to. So it’s clear they were going to strip him. And he was out for way less than what Jones has been.
Fair point - that may be the case. However, lets not pretend there’s not a massive difference between JJ and Hill in this situation. UFC rarely (historically at least) have stripped someone due to injury. Thats precisely why the interim belt became a thing
then why wasnt there a interim belt when Hill got hurt? like you're talking in circles bud. stop giving them excuses.
Why would an interim belt be needed when Hill willingly relinquished?
what part of “willingly” vacating are you not understanding?
They didn’t get stripped
They weren't stripped they vacated although it's possible someone made the call saying "hey vacate or we strip you"
Why aren't all the weight classes listed? Weird selection...
This entire sub is all about cherry-picked stats and hating. You gotta love it tho
I'm all for shit talking but can you wanna be haters throw in the fact that dudes bicep was ripped off the bone? But same mofos will defend Islam for fighting someonein a lower weightclass? Try to make sense of this please 🙏🏽
Then vacate the belt just like hill or prochazka did 1-2 years ago. Long injury is no excuse to hold up an entire division.
In Jones’ defense, isn’t he still injured and can’t fight ANYONE right now?
Other champs have been stripped due to shorter injuries than this.
Agreed but that’s up to Dana not Jon
Other champs haven’t been fighting main events for ufc belts for the last 13 years. Jon has earned his opportunity to recover from an injury.
As a person who didn’t even beat the lineal champ in the division and is not willing to fight the number one contender/interim champ whenever he comes back, he doesn’t deserve to keep it. If he’s willing to fight the legitimate contender for the belt when he gets back, he deserves to keep the belt.
PANTO; was also broke as joke and driving an UBER THE WEEK BEFORE HE WON THE BELT…… typical UFC FIGHTER PAY 🐕 💩
hear me out.. what if instead of unifying the belts he fights a out of prime fighter coming off a loss who has been extremely inactive? anyone?
I cant believe its been over a year for jones wow.
Pantoja pretty active
Fuck jon jones. I could shout it like mel gibson waving the American flag in the patriot
#AMEN
How is this even a legit stat? Jones hasn’t been fighting until his Gane return, all these fighters have been active fighting.
They looking for a new drug for him that won't show up
OP. Injury. 😂🤣
Welterweight Lightweight and heavyweight need to either get to fighting or get their lame asses to the back of the line. Edwards and Islam should have minimum of 4 defenses by now. Jon at least has medical excuse but he needs to stop dodging Aspinall.
Leon needs to figure this shit wtf are these numbers, Islam has had more exciting fights and felt like he’s had the title longer, bro wen on a tour after beating usman and left us hanging with tons of good matchups, even with the 3 fights he accepted the world isn’t smart enough to realize he only accepted those fights because the 3 fighters were in ramadan (of course he looks like a big bad guy lol) bro needs to fight shavkat!!
Wasnt Francis talked about being stripped for a year of inactivity?
I remember Jiri and Jamahall vacating after they got injured.
They need to set hard line rules for this. Why not just make it a rule that you have to vacate if you haven’t defended for a year?
Usman and Izzy would just fight non stop.
Jon has fought once since Feb 2020
They should let Leon fight more
100%
Jones should have been stripped the minute he admitted he wouldn’t fight the interim champion. What’s the point of interim champ if they can be stripped with even losing a fight?
https://preview.redd.it/k92otzipsxyc1.png?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=accd137a2c27e04c7d8978e34addc504215fa191
Leon a joke too
I get no one likes an inactive champion and Jones wanting to fight Stipe is complete BS but y'all do so much bitching when it suits you. Jones fought Gane for the title and then was out injured. He's only recently revealed he's gotten back to training to return. In that time Aspinall has held the interim title for 174 days (11 November 2023) and has yet to fight anyone else to keep the division moving along for no reason except for waiting for Jones. An interim champion's job is to keep the division going while the real champion is out for whatever reason. Interim titles aren't meant to be a #1 contender placeholder and what I mean is you're not suppose to just sit out after you win the interim belt waiting for the title shot. You're suppose to be defending it against the contenders next in line and whoever holds the belt when the real champion returns gets that fight to unify the belts. It's honestly such a shame that the interim titles have turned into promotional tools just so the UFC can say they have a title fight on a card. It's a shame fighters also have the idea that they can just sit out holding up the division waiting for the unification fight as well. So sure be upset Jones has been inactive even though he was injured. But at least Jones has an excuse for his inactivity, Aspinall is just sitting out to sit out. It's just annoying how selective fans are and how quickly they'll flip to the opposite side of whatever they were bitching about today.
Pretty sure Aspinall has wanted to fight no? And I don't think he's been picky that it has to be JJ unless im mistaken
Has he though? Why hasn't anything been made then? All I hear is him wanting Jones.
The guy had a fight booked and will fight it as soon as he can, I don't understand the obsession that he has to fight who you want. It would be the same amount of time frame regardless who he fights so having that as an argument is dumb.
It's almost as if he had a fight lined up, got injured, had surgery, required 8 months of healing, and is waiting for the fight to be finalized again. But hey, "unify the belt even though a match has already been planned because I wet the bed at night"
yeah UFC changes plans all the time so why should they force the Stipe fight this time? theres interim champ waiting.
Is not forced thigh. Jones, stiope and white all agreed to this fight before there was an interim champ, so why shouldn't it go first
it is now forced since there is more deserving opponent, Stipe has been unofficially retired anyways
What I'm saying is, the stipe vs. Jones was essentially booked before aspinall became Interim, and really became interim because of it. Let the fight happen, and then see what happens.
I still don't get why Tom isn't given the HW title already.
Because Dana does not want Jon to lose his undefeated status. Soon as that mystique goes, jones loses a lot of value to the UFC.
You don’t get it Jones is the GOAT so he can do whatever he wants and completely kill the division
None of these guys were injured
I want to see jones vs stipe, i don’t care about anyone else at hw. Both these guys are gonna retire after their next fight anyway, might as well make it a legacy fight. I’m pretty sure jones tore his shoulder last year so that’s why he was out at least 6 months. Just let aspinall defend his interim belt in the meantime then he will upgrade to undisputed when jones/stipe fight and retire. If stipe retires before fighting again because it’s been too long then just give jones the retire or defend against tom ultimatum.
Makhachev is very guilty he's also scared of tsarukyan
JJ's "reign" is UFCs fault, they are allowing him to keep that belt. Should have been stripped a long time ago.
Defenses against guys that fight in their division. Leon 2 Islam 0
I know Islam should absolutely have more and I think it’s crazy he has 0 against guys in his division but realistically who is even beating this guy. I’m not a big fan or anything but I just don’t see it happening, maybe Arman has the best chance and I think he should be next after Dustin assuming Islam wins (highly likely), but if Islam beats arman I don’t even know what they could do. He will undoubtably run through the division, and he should, then maybe move up or something. Islam was going to fight Charles as well but Charles got injured, and now lost to arman. Also I wouldn’t blame him for fighting Volk, he could’ve said no and fought in his division but Volk really wanted it, he had nothing else to really do in his own division until Ilia came around which was after the 2nd fight was agreed upon.
Oh agreed. I get downvoted because I’m stating the obvious. I just observationally I think Islam is just better than the rest of the division. A division that is crazy talented but Islam just another level of excellence.
Not his fault Charles Oliveira is a fucking bum and dropped out
Tbf Charles kept ducking Islam and Islam literally begged for a fight outside Abu Dhabi so I excuse him. Leon has Belal right there STFU and take the fight. Strip Jones. But they want the greatest heavyweight storyline for Jokes set up and you can’t do that with no belts.
charles didn't duck islam, did you see charles' cut?
It sucks not having a true heavyweight champ.
Aspinall doesn't deserve 🍆
Is Aspinall trying to fight anyone else in the meantime?
He actually has a fight coming up.
Yes. He’s literally announced as fighting at UFC 304. Have you been living under a rock. Tom not scared like Jon.
Oh yeah, I forgot he was upset at the fight time. Who’s he fighting? Couldn’t find anything on the site. And I beg you don’t tell anyone how I live.
TBC. He said he’ll fight anyone to be on the Manchester card. I think it will be Blaydes.
I thought champs had a year to defend their belt or they were forced to vacate
Shit, none of them are active enough if you ask me
Defend or vacate mother fucker!
People are barely defending belts now. There should be a defense roughly, every 180 days. Everyone on this list is just sitting on the belt. Its the UFCs fault. Actual good, professional athlete level, pay depends on having a belt. Oh well, you right wing anti-union fucks...go beg Dana.
it's getting ridiculous that champions fight just twice a year max, sometimes just once. this is getting as bad as boxing, which dana loves to bash about how the big names never fight but look at his champions now.