"Why wait?" - Tom Aspinall responds after Stipe Miocic agrees to talk to unify the belt should he beat Jon Jones

Tom Aspinall is not in favor of Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic. Fortunately, his criticism of the bout drew a positive response from Miocic. Now, Aspinall himself has responded to Miocic's offer to face him, but only after he takes on Jones, as both he and the UFC still intend.

Aspinall took to X/Twitter to counter Miocic's offer to unify the titles with Aspinall after he defeats Jones for heavyweight gold. Aspinall, however, questioned the logic of his rival's offer.

"Why wait? Ready when you are boss"

Part of Aspinall's argument is how long Miocic will have to wait for Jones to recover from his pectoral tear. If the reigning UFC heavyweight champion recovers from his injury as expected, he will return in the final stretch of the year, when Miocic will be 42 years old and on an even greater physical decline.

Aspinall has been adamant that he should face Jones next. Unfortunately, 'Bones' has been relatively dismissive of the Englishman, who — in an ideal world — would have already been scheduled to face Jones to unify the heavyweight titles, given Aspinall's status as an interim champion at 265 pounds.

This isn't the first time that Aspinall has been faced with a situation where a potential opponent turned down a matchup with him. He previously challenged former interim heavyweight champion Ciryl Gane following his successful octagon return against Marcin Tybura.

However, Gane dismissed a possible bout with Aspinall in favor of chasing a title rematch with Jones. However, following Aspinall's interim championship win over Sergei Pavlovich, the Frenchman changed his tune. Only this time, it was the Englishman who turned him away.

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Tom Aspinall's recent UFC heavyweight run

Tom Aspinall has been in the UFC since July 26, 2020. In a fairly short amount of time, he has stormed through the promotion's heavyweight division, racking up five consecutive stoppage wins, consisting of three TKOs and two submissions. This led to him being booked for a litmus test against Curtis Blaydes.

Check out Tom Aspinall taking Alexander Volkov down in the clip below:

Unfortunately, Aspinall injured several knee ligaments during his bout with Blaydes, which ended in anticlimactic fashion in Round 1. However, upon his return, he mounted a two-fight win streak, culminating a first-round knockout over Sergei Pavlovich to become the UFC interim heavyweight champion.