The UFC recently announced Ilia Topuria vs. Charles Oliveira at UFC 317 and Dricus Du Plessis vs. Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319. However, the biggest potential fight of the year is an undisputed heavyweight championship bout between Jon Jones and Tom Apsinall. Jones is currently the reigning UFC Heavyweight Champion, but Aspinall is the Interim Heavyweight Champion.
On DraftKings Sportsbook, you can see the odds of potential fights taking place in the future. In this matchup, the interim champion is the favorite at -130, while Jones is a +110 underdog.
Jones submitted Ciryl Gane at UFC 285 to win the heavyweight title. After Jones suffered an injury and was forced to withdraw from his fight with Stipe Miocic at UFC 295, Tom Aspinall beat Sergei Pavlovich for the Interim title. Aspianll also defended his title against Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304 in July 2024.
At UFC 309 in November 2024, Jones made his return after 20 months away to fight Miocic. Jones beat him by KO/TKO for his first successful title defense at heavyweight. Aspinall is one of Jones’ toughest challengers of his career. Will the pride of Salford, United Kingdom, be the one to hand Jones his first legitimate career loss? Jones’ lone loss on his resume was a DQ against Matt Hamill in 2009.
Dana White remained confident on his recent Instagram live that this fight would happen. “I told you guys already, we’ll get Aspinall vs. Jones done. Just relax. I’ll announce that soon,” White said.
