You know, on one hand Aspinal really deserves to a fight against Jones, or just be counted as a division champ. On the other, people still consider that he must prove something, still needs that "just one more fight to prove that he could face champion". Some say that he should have a rematch against Blaydes, but I think that right now, Blaydes must earn a chance to have a fight against Aspinal. Because Aspinal is a "champion" now, but Blaydes has lost his previous fight.
Yup, there are still a lot of question marks on Aspinall as we've not seen much of him in the cage cos he's finished all his opponents in less that three rounds or so. Kindly check if I'm wrong but on the top of my head, I don't remember anybody really testing him. He got a bit tired vs Arlovski but then finished him early at R2 with a rear naked choke.
Exactly. If we ask some random UFC fan who has Aspinall beaten, he would hardly name any 3 fighters, and they probably won be from top5 heavyweights. But that is also a curse of current heavyweight division in general. Everyone knows Jones and Ngannou and connect them with UFC heavyweights. But Ngannou is no longer in UFC and Jones is not much of a fighter (more like a troublemaker). Who else we have? Miocic is old. Pavlovich recently lost to Aspinall. For majority, everyone else are decent, good, average. Or lets say victory over them wont impress much.
I think Jones still has 'it' as a fighter. I kinda had my doubts before Gane, but after Gane he showed that he's still at the top of his game. And Gane is one of the best MMA heavy weights in the world. Nobody expected Jones to finish him that fast.
And we've already seen Jones at his worst and still managed to win. If he wins vs Aspinall the there's only one fight to make for Jones... A match up vs Ngannou.