Blaydes Backed Aspinall’s Speed to Crack the Jon Jones
Curtis Blaydes gave Tom Aspinall a narrow edge in a potential heavyweight unification fight with Jon Jones in December 2024. He believed Aspinall’s speed could disrupt the distance management that had helped make Jones so difficult to beat.
A slight preference came with a tactical explanation
In an interview with Sportskeeda, Blaydes described Aspinall as approximately a fifty-five-percent pick. He acknowledged Jones’s experience, range and varied attacks rather than predicting a one-sided contest.
Blaydes identified Aspinall’s movement into punching distance as the key. He thought the Englishman would attack in quick bursts, limiting the time Jones could spend controlling exchanges with jabs, front kicks and inside leg kicks.
Blaydes had experienced the speed himself
Aspinall had stopped Blaydes one minute into their UFC 304 rematch on July 27, 2024, successfully defending the interim heavyweight championship. That performance informed Blaydes’s assessment of the proposed matchup.
He envisioned an overhand connecting during one of Aspinall’s entries and thought an early finish was possible. The prediction concerned a hypothetical contest between the interim and undisputed champions.
The expected unification bout never arrived
On June 21, 2025, Dana White announced that Jones had retired. Aspinall was elevated to undisputed UFC heavyweight champion without facing him.
Jones’s final defense before that announcement had been a third-round stoppage of Stipe Miocic at UFC 309. The subsequent championship change left Blaydes’s technical forecast untested, while moving Aspinall from the interim position to the division’s undisputed title.
Sources
- MMA Junkie: Blaydes’s prediction and tactical explanation
- UFC: July 27 Aspinall rematch and one-minute finish
- UFC: June 21 Jones retirement announcement and Aspinall’s elevation
