Ben Askren Feels Jon Jones Has Info on Dana White

During an episode of “Funky & The Champ,” Ben Askren shared his belief that Jon Jones may have something on Dana White given how lenient he’s been on not booking the Tom Aspinall fight (h/t MMAFighting.com).

“I almost feel like maybe Jon’s got some dirt on Dana or something, because Dana generally would not put up with this type of behavior,” Askren said on Funky & The Champ with Daniel Cormier. “He would say, and this is what the UFC is founded on where boxing [wasn’t], is, ‘We want the best guys to fight. We want to see who the actual best guy is. We don’t want to waste time with shenanigans, we won’t want to pad records to go to 40-0, we don’t do that, that’s what boxing does. In the UFC, we put the best guys in there and see who wins.’

“So the fact that Jon is being — I don’t want to say, [I don’t know] if allowed is the right term, but Dana’s playing along, and letting him and Stipe fight. Stipe is going to be close to four years [since his last fight] by the time they ever fight. … You have this young interim champion, he’s a beast, just smashes people, and the fact that they won’t put them in there together — and then there’s this good [chance] that Jon beats Stipe and then says, ‘I’m done, I’m gone.’ And then you never get to see [Jones vs. Aspinall].”

White has said that having Aspinall as a backup for the Jones vs. Miocic fight sounds like a good idea. Tom remains adamant about feeling he should simply replace Miocic given that Stipe hasn’t fought since 2021 and it was a knockout loss to Francis Ngannou.