Imagine it’s December 2022, Argentina is set to take on France in the World Cup Final. However, France - as the returning champions - declare that they do not want to play against the Argentine team. Instead, they choose to play against Spain’s (now retired) 2010 players. Not only that, but FIFA have allowed and supported this change.

If that seems absurd, pointless, and grossly unfair to both the fans and the Argentinians, you can begin to grasp how Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fans feel about this weekend’s Heavyweight World Championship fight. 

In MMA, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is the height of competition, a sort of Champions League, where all fighters want to be. This Saturday night, Jon ‘Bones’ Jones will be defending his heavyweight belt against Stipe Miocic. 

Jones (37) is seen by many as the greatest mixed martial artist of all time, boasting an undefeated record (with the exception of one controversial disqualification), 14 World Championship wins at Light Heavyweight, and another gold after his recent move up to Heavyweight. His career, however, is not without its blemishes: he has the most positive drug tests in UFC history, and multiple arrests to his name. Miocic (42), similarly, is regarded as the greatest Heavyweight fighter of all time. He has beaten, and in many cases knocked out, several legends of the sport.

"The fans certainly didn’t think that Miocic was deserving of an immediate title shot after such a long hiatus"

Jones won the belt in March of 2023, and hasn’t fought since due to injury. Miocic hasn’t fought since he lost the championship belt via KO in March of 2021, and hasn’t won a fight since August of 2020. 4 years is a long time in any sport, but it has been so long since Miocic’s last fight that not a single one of his former opponents is still in the UFC. Not one. Despite his former greatness, Miocic’s career was seemingly over. The fanbase agreed that the sport had moved on. The fans certainly didn’t think that Miocic was deserving of an immediate title shot after such a long hiatus. Especially not coming off of such a decisive loss, with many other fighters ready and eager to challenge for the title.

So why has he been brought out of his all-but-official retirement to fight Jones? And who should be the challenger instead? With regard to the first question, it’s the worst kept secret in MMA that both men will officially retire after Saturday night - regardless of the outcome - so neither wants to fight a young and hungry contender. With regard to the second, his name is Tom Aspinall. 

Aspinall (31), is the Interim Champion. The interim championship is fought for when the current champion cannot fight due to (for example) injury. Jones was originally going to fight Miocic in November of 2023. However, Jones tore a tendon near his shoulder only weeks away from the fight, and could not compete - he would be out of competition for at least a year. Subsequently, the UFC decided to make an Interim title fight for that same night. And so the fight was made between Tom Aspinall and Russian fighter Sergei Pavlovich. But what about Miocic? If the UFC believed he deserved to challenge Jones for the title, why didn’t he deserve to fight for the Interim too?

The answer to this is pretty simple: marketing. Miocic is a bigger name that draws more attention than Aspinall. Putting him against Jones makes more monetary sense, and therefore they can’t risk him losing the interim title fight. But if the point of an interim championship is that the winner fights the champion, why make an interim fight at all if you’re not going to give the winner the chance to become undisputed? The answer, again, is marketing. 

The UFC need people to buy their product. If your main event of the night falls apart, you can’t replace it with a non-title fight, or you risk losing a huge number of potential pay-per-view sales. So an interim title was made, with no intention to ever make the two champions fight each other.

Aspinall knocked out Pavlovich in just over a minute. He then defended his interim championship in July of this year, winning again by KO in only a minute. 7 of Aspinall’s 8 UFC wins have come in the first round, the other in the second. His only loss was a freak injury in the first 15 seconds of a fight, so not really a proper loss. Aspinall is also 6’5”, 120kgs, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt, former training partner of Tyson and Tommy Fury, and blindingly quick for a heavyweight. In my mind he is without question the best heavyweight fighter in the UFC, and one of the best talents in recent years.