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Michael Bisping believes Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic are the only two UFC heavyweight fighters who can potentially defeat Tom Aspinall.
At UFC 295, Aspinall skyrocketed to fame with a first-round knockout win against Sergei Pavlovich for the interim heavyweight title. Since then, the 30-year-old has become a key figure in the division, as he showed the potential to be the heavyweight king for the foreseeable future.
With that said, Aspinall still has another massive mountain to climb. In 2024, he will likely have to fight the winner of Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic, which was postponed due to Jones’ suffering a torn pectoral muscle.
According to Michael Bisping, Jones or Miocic must defeat Aspinall to avoid the latter from reigning terror in the division. Bisping had this to say during a recent episode of his podcast, Believe You Me:
“Outside of Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic], I genuinely don’t see anybody in the heavyweight division [Tom Aspinall] a problem anytime soon. He can knock anybody out, he can take anybody down, and he can probably submit all of them as well. He is literally the heavyweight Georges St-Pierre.”
Watch Michael Bisping's comments about Aspinall starting at 4:30 below:
Michael Bisping praises Tom Aspinall for taking a risk against Sergei Pavlovich and capitalizing on the opportunity
Tom Aspinall overcame several hurdles to become the UFC interim heavyweight champion. The English superstar only had two weeks to prepare for the fight, same as Sergei Pavlovich, and suffered a back injury during his short-notice preparations.
During the previously mentioned podcast episode, Michael Bisping had this to say about Aspinall’s willingness to take a risk to further his career:
“He steps up two and a half weeks against Sergei, no training camp, bad back, and another loss would have really slowed down the hype. He was still willing to risk all that to become interim champion and walk through it, made it look easy. And he took a shot as well. He proved he has a chin.”
Tom Aspinall must now wait to see what happens with Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic. There is no specific timeline for the fight to be re-scheduled, but Jones is expected to fully recover by mid-2024.
