UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones would like to fight former titleholder Francis Ngannou next, but Ngannou isn’t under UFC contract. He’s signed with the Professional Fighters League (PFL).
UFC matchmakers have been working to put together a title unification bout between Jones and interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall, but Jones doesn’t seem interested in fighting the heavy-hitting Brit. He doesn’t think a win over Aspinall adds that much, if anything, to his legacy.
UFC CEO Dana White said that Jones is ‘talking crazy’ when asked about the potential of Jones facing Ngannou during the UFC 316 Post-Fight Press Conference on Saturday.
“Tom Aspinall is the guy,” White said. “Listen, if the guy (Jones) wants to retire and doesn’t want to fight, there’s nothing you can do… I’ll do what I can to make the fight if we can. If he’s talking talking that crazy sh*t, I didn’t realize that.”
Jones and Ngannou agreed to fight each other in an exchange on social media, but White showed no interest. The fight promotion tried to book Jones vs. Ngannou for Jones’ heavyweight debut but couldn’t come to terms with Ngannou in contract negotiations. Part of the hangup was Ngannou wanting the ability to accept boxing matches.
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Ngannou left the organization as the heavyweight titleholder after his contract expired in December 2023. He inked a deal with the PFL and secured lucrative boxing bouts against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. White shut down any talk of trying to bring Ngannou back to the organization, or working with the PFL to make a fight against Jones happen.
“It’s Aspinall’s fight. I mean, we’ve been talking forever about it and it’s his fight,” White said. “You can’t make people fight. If Jon doesn’t want to fight, we can’t make him fight. We can try to make him fight. We can throw things at him that inspire him to want to fight.”
“I don’t have Ngannou under contact, and Aspinall is the guy,” White added.
Asked if he were in a position to, would he try to re-sign Ngannou, White responded, “Probably not.”
White believes he’ll still be able to put together a fight between Jones and Aspinall and revealed that Jones agreed to the match.
“Jon Jones agreed to do that fight. Jon Jones was offered a deal and accepted the deal,” White said.
