Tom Aspinall and Demetrious Johnson agree — Jon Jones can never be the MMA GOAT
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Jon Jones left a lasting legacy on the MMA world as one of its all-time greats, but some of his contemporaries still have questions regarding his placement atop the mountain.
After officially retiring this past weekend, Jones is generally considered neck-and-neck with a fellow former two-division UFC champion Georges St-Pierre in MMA's greatest of all time conversation. However Jones' many career asterisks, between his numerous failed drug tests and continuous criminal charges, are too much for some to overlook. Retired flyweight legend Demetrious Johnson is also in the GOAT conversation, and admittedly has gone to bat for Jones in the past. Speaking on a special Friday edition of "The Ariel Helwani Show" in Las Vegas, Johnson revealed what has led him to change his tune.
"I've never failed a drug test," Johnson said. "Khabib [Nurmagomedov] has never failed a drug test. 'GSP' has never failed a drug test. Why haven't we failed drug tests? You look at the long reigns we've done, we've never been stripped [of the title]. And you look at somebody who has been stripped ... Americans and people who watch this sport have a very short-term memory. They truly f***ing do. But if you go back and peel back the onion, and you look at the whole entire career, I'm not saying Jon Jones didn't do great things — he was an amazing athlete, right? But when you start talking about the greatest of all time, you look at Muhammad Ali. I don't think he's ever failed a drug test. If you look at Floyd Mayweather, he's never failed a drug test. [Oleksander] Usyk, he's never failed a drug test. Usain Bolt.
"You look at across the board, name one athlete that's considered the greatest of all time in a sport that's failed a drug test."
Jones' retirement didn't come without controversy, as it ended the lengthy saga of his ill-fated heavyweight unification bout against Tom Aspinall. The latter became the longest interim champion in UFC history while waiting for Jones, only to ultimately be promoted to undisputed status in the middle of a UFC Baku post-fight press conference upon Jones' retirement.
Aspinall, too, shares a similar line of thinking to Johnson regarding the GOAT debate.
"'GSP' is my greatest of all time," Aspinall said Friday on "The Ariel Helwani Show." "It goes without saying. He has done everything. Two-division champion, also [avenged] both of his losses, zero PED stuff. And this is my view on PEDs, personally — if you're a sprinter, for example, you do 100 meters, and you take PEDs and you win a race, you become faster than people who are not taking PEDs from that. That's OK. You're a cheat; you've won. They'll take your title off you or whatever, that's fine. If your job is to hurt another person physically, which could potentially redirect the rest of their life post-fighting, you're an absolute piece of s***, and you should never be able to fight again if you have any PED stuff.
"It's like taking a gun to a knife fight. It's like taking a knife to a bare-knuckle fight. How can you look yourself in the mirror when you know that you're cheating and you could potentially damage the other person for life? It's disgusting, and anybody who's caught doing any kind of PEDs — and I know there's some tainted supplements out there — but if you do it repeatedly ... you're a pretty sick individual, in my opinion. It shouldn't be allowed."
No one was affected more directly by Jones' recent portion of his career than Aspinall, who has been healthy but sidelined for nearly a full year. Aspinall's interim title reign began in November 2023 as a result of a Jones pectoral muscle tear that canceled his controversial title defense against Stipe Miocic. Needing a filler, UFC threw together a late interim bout between Aspinall and Sergei Pavlovich, which the Brit won by knockout in a mere 69 seconds.
Jones' perpetual lack of interest in fighting Aspinall didn't give the new undisputed champ much optimism until a meeting with UFC earlier this year. Then he caught word of Jones' recent antics in Thailand, which finally convinced Aspinall that the matchup was never meant to be.
"For me, the second that I won the interim title, I think that a lot of people looked at me a little different to a regular interim champion, in my opinion," Aspinall said. "Just because of the politics around it and the way that things happened. But for me, I was always a champion, anyway. Interim or not. But I would have liked to have taken it from the other champion in a fight. That would have been nice. But I guess it worked out pretty good, anyway, I guess.
"From here, I just want to be done with [Jones]. I just want to move on, but I did want to fight him for it. I think that would have been the right thing to do."
Aspinall said he plans to meet with the UFC to discuss his future sometime before he departs Las Vegas in the coming days, but as of now, he's unsure when he'll fight again. Ideally, the sooner the better, said the undisputed heavyweight king.
As for the opponent, he's open to anyone.
"Cirly Gane is there, we can do [Alexander] Volkov too, but that's a bit weird because he's coming off the loss, which I actually did think he won, to be fair," Aspinall said. "[Jailton] Almeida's good. I like it.
"I was chasing that [Gane] fight when he was above me ... any of 'em. All of 'em. I'm here to fight people, so anybody's good. If somebody wants to fight me, I love that. ... I'd like to beat [everyone] in the top 10."
