Jon Jones, Tom Aspinal. We want to see them in the octagon one day. And we might have had a little preview about that at the weekend because Jon Jones was at the Thunder outside. Jon Jones was at the Arnold Sports Festival in Birmingham, England. I think he was there because I was there a couple of years ago. Tom Aspinal was also there. Of course, as we know, Jon Jones, recovering, going to fight steep. Tom is the interim champ. A lot of people want to see them throw down. Tom seised the opportunity, got his YouTube crew around with him, had the microphone on, goes up, breaks the line, walks to the front, and as a little, not a Confrontation. Not a confrontation, not a confrontation, but there was a little bit of chest puffing and alpha maleness going on. Let's have a look, Brian. Just saying hello. It's that bit there. We're going to do this thing. I would hope so. I would love to, man. I would hope so. Respect, man. All the best. All the best. I'll do a quick picture.

Sure. Let's get it. The face off. No, no, okay.

Number one, the face off Tom. I know for a fact Tom doesn't do face offs. Tom, I've done appearances with Tom, right? And people come up with the same face off, and Tom says, No, I don't do that. But he wants to get one with Jones because he's smart. I get it. You know what I mean? That'll be a viral shot, them two squaring up. And Jones was just like, No, forget that. But that's Tom's move. He puts He puts his hand on the shoulder. If you look at the fight with Serge Pavlovitch, Madison Square Garden, before they started, he puts the hand on the shoulder. He did it, I think. He's done it in numerous of his fights. He's done it many times. He puts the hand on the shoulder. And it's two things. One, it's being nice to say, Hey, there's no animosity here. This is a personal. It's just business. But also there's an element of big brother in your opponent saying, Don't worry. Don't worry. This will be fine. This is going to be okay. Tom goes up, hand on the shoulder. Jones is like, No, you don't. You ain't pulling that shit with me.

And I love it. I love it. I can't wait for that fight to go down. Of course, Jones versus Steepay, but what are your thoughts, Harrington?

Dude, Jones, he talked a lot. He talked a lot over the last couple of months about this Tom Aspenal fight is huge. We can make big box office with this. And when they're face to face, all he has for him is, Yeah, I hope so. Not like, Yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, we're going to do it on this day. Let me get steep out of the way in November. Let's plan spring of next year. There wasn't any of that. It was just a very non-committal sizing him up, which I didn't love.

Yeah, that's a fair point. That is a fair point because you would have thought that he would have said, Yeah, well, listen, let me take care of Steepay, and then don't worry, I'll take care of you, with a smile on his face. I mean, it was very cordial and very mature from the pair of them, even that one little moment. I mean, it wasn't even bad. That's as close to a little bit of, I'm in charge, no, I'm in charge type thing. But you're right. Should he have said that? I don't know. I mean, of course Tom wants that fight. Tom's a nice guy. He's respectable, and he's not going to cause any drama. In fact, he even said after to it. He said, I want to fight the guy in an octagon. I'm not trying to fight him at some signing event. That doesn't make any sense. But yeah, that was a curious response. You're right. I agree. He should have said, Yeah, don't worry. You're next. Let me take care of Steeple and we'll figure it out. Or maybe he was just like, I'm not letting you be in the driver's seat. If it happens, it happens, but I'm the champ.

You know what I mean?

So you got then three instances of him playing it cool, right? He's like, Yeah, we'll see. Maybe I'll fight you. By the way, get your hand off of me. And no, I'm not taking a fan picture with you, square it up like we're going to make for you fight. That's Big Brother right there.

Are you saying that Jones is currently three and over against Tom Aspinal?

I'm just saying that's three strikes, and it seems like Tom might have been out in that interaction.

He's within the psychological warfare. No, it's 4-0. Tom is going to him, right? Do you know what I mean? Jones didn't go to him. He's minding his own business. Tom comes up. He's like, All right, let him jump the line. All right, you're waiting in line to see me, are you? Okay, come on, get a picture. No, you can't have a face up. No, get your hand off me. And no, I'm not agreeing to a fight. I'm the boss. I'm in charge. Damn, I wish we didn't speak to Tom last week. I wish it was this week. I would love to hear his take and all of that, but fair play. A few moments later. We were talking about Tom Aspinal and Jon Jones and Brett Okomoto, who I really respect as an MMA journalist, works for ESPN. Great guy. He came out and he's done an updated list. I believe I'm correct. He's ranked the heavyweight, basically. And he even went as so far, in his words, not mine, to call Jones a pay paper champion. Harrington, have you got the details there?

Yeah, I can pull up the exact quote here. He said, John Jones, he did it in tiers. So he said, The top tier is Tom Ashton all by himself. He said, The second, he said, The goat, but the number two heavyweight in the world. I said, I'll use some verbiage here that some might not like, but let's keep it real. Jones is a paper champion of the UFC's heavyweight division. He didn't beat the previous champion, Frantz Nganu, to win the belt. He won a vacant title over Cyril Ghan, who's most Championship caliber win. It's argumental over Junior Dosantos in the final fight of Dosantos' UFC career.

All right, so that sounds harsh, but I guess he is just outlining some facts, right? Those are facts. He didn't beat Nganu. He did beat Cyril Garn. Cyril Garn is a formidable fighter. Some might say a little one-dimensional. I'm not saying that, but he's definitely a really high-level striker and probably a bit mediocre with the other stuff. Paper champion seems a bit of a harsh assessment. I understand what he's saying, though, because Tom Aspinal is out there fighting heavyweights his entire career in the UFC. He's just blown through everybody, barring that Curtis, what's It's then Kirk's blades unfortunate scenario where he blew his knee out. Again, this just furthers the commentary and the discussion that these two have to fight at some point, which again is why I find it surprising that Jones just said, Yeah, maybe we'll do it one day. Maybe we won't.

Well, I mean, it's tough whenever the word paper champ gets thrown around, it is harsh criticism, but you have to look at the divisions where something like this has happened in the past. Johnny Hendrix didn't save the Welfare way title. Robbie Lawler did. He won the belt, then he had the war against Rory McDonald, then the Carlos Condit fight, all of that legitimized that belt once again after George St. Pierre left. John Jones came in, beat the last guy that Francis Nganu beat, and then hasn't defended the belt again. I don't know how you can call that. I think the bigger thing that sticks out in my mind, who would you, as a heavyweight, your first heavyweight fight, who would you be more nervous fighting? Cyril Ghan or Serge Pavlovitch, who Tom Aspinal won the belt off of?

Yeah, but again, and I'm not here to defend Jones. I'm not, but let's look at the details. He beats Cyril Ghan to become the champ, okay? Because The Championship was vacant. Then he was going to fight Steepe Mihać, who was known as the greatest of all time because he's got the most defenses. And then he gets injured. Mixed martial arts is a bitch of a sport to prepare for. The fight is the easy part, the preparation and the camps are the hard part. I'm not defending Jones. We all know everyone says, I've got a hard on for Tom Aspinal. He's a great guy. He's an incredible fighter. But you got to call the facts for what they are. Injuries are a part of the sport. And he got injured, and he's got to come back. You know what I mean? I tell you what, Brett O'Komuto, he better be ready. When he wants that interview with John Jones, Brett is going to be in for it. He's going to have a very, very feisty John Jones to deal with there. But right now, what do you say? Paper champion or not paper champion?

Look, Tom Aspenal is the one who's calling for top ranked heavyweights who are active and fighting to defend his belt. If you ask me, the real UFC heavyweight Championship lives in England. It is insane to call John Jones a paper champion, considering the lineage of John Jones at this point.

He's been a champion since he's been like 20 He's 22 years old. You just can't say he's not legitimately the champ.

No.

He's the greatest in the world. He could wear any belt and be the champion, and legitimately.

It's an interesting take. Harrington, you were going to jump in.

Then why don't we have a date for Tom Asperal? Why don't we have a confirmed, Yeah, I'm sticking around.

Because we haven't even bloody got a date for Steepay yet. He's still recovering. I'm not defending Jones, and I'm not being a company man. I'm just calling out the facts. He got injured training for a fight, and now he's coming back. You know what I mean? He's not even in camp yet, let alone have a date. He's still not 100% healed. When he gets through steep, because they always say, You can't look past this opponent. You You don't have multiple fights lined up. When does that ever happen in the history of the UFC or in the history of high-level combat sports? That doesn't happen. You know what I mean? So I understand your point and the reason for asking the question, but the answer to it is very simple.

Yeah, but there's no But like, Conor McGregor already came out and said he wants to fight in June and then again in September. Like, guys talk about that all the time. I'm not hearing that from Jones. I'm not hearing, Yeah, I want to fight Steepay in the fall, and then I'll fight you at international fight week next year.

I feel like Jones is a little bit more tactical and based in reality when he's talking about the future, whereas people like Connor are shooting for the best case scenario of their career, right? He didn't know he was going to go be the double champ, but he called for it and he got it, and that shit happens. But it could have just as easily not happened.

That's a nice segue to Connor now. We get off Jones because we've set our pieces on that.