He isn't quite there yet, but Tom Aspinall has his sights set on a shot at the UFC heavyweight title, and Dana White has given a strong hint that victory this weekend could push him right into the title conversation for 2024.
Aspinall takes on Poland's Marcin Tybura in the main event at The O2 Arena on Saturday night. And, with Jones set to put his title on the line against former champ Stipe Miocic at UFC 295 in New York on November 11, the race is on to find the next man in line to fight for the title in 2024.
The chasing pack includes hard-hitting number-one contender Sergei Pavlovich, former interim champion Ciryl Gane, rising Brazilian finisher Jailton Almeida and England's Aspinall, whose momentum took a hit when he suffered a knee injury in the opening seconds of his bout with Curtis Blaydes at UFC London last year.
Now Aspinall is back, and a big win for the Englishman could put him right in contention to face the winner of Jones vs. Miocic next year.
"The heavyweight division is super-exciting right now," White told TNT Sports ahead of UFC London.
"I mean, you've got Jon Jones as the champion, so you know, obviously a win for (Aspinall) is big. Imagine if we could end up with an England versus Jon Jones fight."
The UFC heavyweight division seems to be in the process of a rebirth. With Francis Ngannou leaving the promotion having not lost his belt in the cage, the vacant title was won in decisive fashion by Jones, who dominated Gane to add the heavyweight title to his prior reign as light heavyweight king.
Now Jones sits atop the UFC's heavyweight mountain, and a host of young up-and-coming contenders are jockeying for position to face him, or Miocic, next year.
Aspinall faces Tybura this weekend, while Gane takes on in-form Moldovan Serghei Spivac in Paris in September. Almeida, meanwhile, faces a stern test of his credentials when he faces longtime contender Blaydes in Sao Paulo in November. Elsewhere, fellow top 10 contenders Tai Tuivasa and Alexander Volkov will face off at UFC 293 in Sydney in September.
Those matchups will help define the championship picture in the UFC's heaviest weight class, and White said he was excited to see how the division plays out in the coming months.
"It happens, you know, you get different divisions that kind of go like this," he said.
"There's no doubt the heavyweight division is back, and fun, and exciting. (We have) Big guys that have knockout power, guys with ground games, and then you've got Jon Jones, who is the greatest of all time, so it's a good time for the heavyweights."
