Quote from: pawel7777 on November 19, 2023, 11:20:40 AM

Quote from: Hirose UK on November 19, 2023, 09:57:45 AM

~snip~

Not quite, the purpose of the interim belt is to provide replacement if the undisputed champion is out due to an injury etc. But when he's back in action, there should be a unification bout between him and the interim belt holder.
So if Jones refuses to fight Tom, he will get stripped of the title in favour of Tom.
For some reason, the UFC still want to go ahead with Jones Vs Stipe, but, after that, Jones (or Stipe if he wins) will have to fight the interim belt holder or lose the title.

So Aspinall doesn't need to do anything to get the fight with Jones, unless he himself (or the UFC) doesn't want to be inactive for that long.
The UFC could force Tom to defend the interim belt, but that would be quite nonsense, as it would be like creating two parallel titles within the same weight-class.

Yes, I also understand that the purpose of having an interim title is as replacement for the main belt held by the champion and currently the owner of the belt is Jones who is injured, but before fighting Aspinall he has a schedule against Stipe Miocic so Aspinall has to wait or do some future fight.
Wouldn't having more fights be better because Aspinall can actually train and prepare himself when he has to fight Jones in the future?
Jones vs Stipe would be much more interesting than Jones vs Aspinall and this is why the UFC is really putting their fight first rather than having to put him up against the interim title holder, isn't it about the money? and Jones vs Stipe could make more money.

There will not be two parallel belt titles in one weight class and they will just have to wait for the UFC decision to schedule the fight.
As I said before, Jones vs Stipe will be prioritized before the actual title holder meets the interim title holder.
But this is quite interesting because there will be two heavyweight title fights in the near future.