Businesswise Stipe vs Jones will make sense for Jones. Less risky and with higher pay than fighting Tom which could fatally backfire on Jones ending his career with a loss. That's not good for someone who wanted to be the goat.
The thing is, everybody knows and expects Stipe to be an easy fight for Jones. Jon tries to wrap it up as fighting against the heavyweight GOAT, but that's simply not true. Stipe was great but he's effectively retired and going back to the octagon only for the money.
With that in mind, I'm not so sure if the pay would be higher for Stipe than for Aspinall. Tom made his name quite quickly and everybody knows he's the real challenge, defeating him would undoubtedly prove that Jones is the greatest in the world. I know which fight I'd prefer to see and I'm sure most of the UFC fans would agree.
Giving Blaydes the rematch with Tom will be good to see how it would have happened if the injury hadn't happened. Tom's belt is fake. UFC just made it so that Jones will not be stripped. But he should have been stripped. In an interview, Tom also said so.
Nah, I don't see it. Just because Tom injured himself in that fight doesn't mean Blaydes deserves to fight the (interim) champion.
I don't agree Jones should've been stripped, but he should definitely be facing the interim belt holder immediately after his recovery.
Two champion in one division is great. After all the other one is inactive and they can be activated when someone with a potential PPV money maker comes up.
Stipe is arguably the greatest in UFC HW but of course, Stipe isn't what he was at this point. They could have done this fight a long time ago but why did Dana have to wait?
No one wants to see Stipe fight at this point due to his age but because this is a legacy fight as Dana said, it would happen and make Jones the Goat.
They didn't make it easy for Tom to rise in UFC, he was on his winning streak and then matched to one of the toughest Blaydes.
People want to see Jones vs Aspinall of course, will Dana agree to be on the UK market?