Alex Pereira and Tom Aspinall took home UFC titles after picking up wins at UFC 295, but what’s next for the new champs?
UFC 295 concluded with two new champions, as Alex Pereira won the vacant light heavyweight title and Tom Aspinall took home the interim heavyweight title. But with two divisions plagued with questions, what’s next for the new champs and their weight classes? Brett Okamoto, Marc Raimondi and Jeff Wagenheim react to the biggest storylines of the night.
Jon Jones was scheduled to headline UFC 295 but had to withdraw because of injury. As it turned out, the heavyweight champion and consensus GOAT of MMA was a ghostly presence during Saturday night’s final two bouts at Madison Square Garden in New York.
First, the co-main event established Tom Aspinall as a clear No. 1 contender for Jones’ title. The UFC might opt instead to re-book Jones in the planned matchup against former champion Stipe Miocic once Jones’ pectoral tendon heals. But the injured champ’s comeback might not occur until next summer, by which time Miocic would be 42 years old and coming off a layoff of nearly three-and-a-half years.
Conversely, Aspinall showed in Saturday’s 69-second KO of Sergei Pavlovich that he is championship material. The 30-year-old from Salford, England, just outside of Manchester, owns an interim belt now and — no disrespect to Miocic — would be the best choice as a challenger for Jones’ first title defense.
Jones also figured into the UFC 295 main event, contested in his former weight class, light heavyweight. After he ruled at 205 pounds for the better part of a decade, Jones vacated the belt in August 2020 in order to move up to heavyweight. Since then, the belt has been a hot potato, circulating among six different fighters. The latest among them is Alex Pereira, the former middleweight champion, who on Saturday was crowned as light heavyweight champ in just his second bout in the weight class.
Pereira captured the title by knocking out one of Jones’ successors as champ, Jiří Procházka, at 4:08 of Round 2 in a fight that arguably wasn’t going Pereira’s way until right before it ended. Procházka, who had to surrender the title a year ago after suffering a major shoulder injury, was leading the dance in Saturday night’s return to action, until Pereira dropped him with a short counter left hook.
Procházka was hurt by the punch and the follow-up elbows to the side of the head, and Pereira ended up on top of him in full mount, at which point referee Marc Goddard jumped in. The stoppage seemed too quick, although Pereira was in prime position to do more damage, so the result might have been the same even if the fight lasted a bit longer.
Either way, it was not the kind of definitive beating that fans became used to during the bulk of Jones’ reign. And until Pereira or someone else becomes a domineering force in the 205-pound division, “Jonny Bones” will remain an ethereal presence, with all comparisons coming up second best.
