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Michael Bisping Takes Jon Jones' Side After Journalist Calls Him 'Paper Champion' & Puts Him Below Tom Aspinall As UFC's Best Heavyweight

Originally posted on MMA News | By Kyle Dimond | Last updated 3/19/24

In an article for ESPN, Brett Okamoto made a few bold statements about Tom Aspinall, Jon Jones, and the UFC heavyweight division.

Jones is still widely regarded to be the greatest MMA fighter of all time, but there are a lot of fans out there that would agree, at least to some extent, with Okamoto's comments.

The journalist placed interim champion Aspinall higher in the heavyweight rankings despite Jones being the kingpin.

"Jones might have the official UFC championship, and he is the greatest fighter of all time, but Aspinall is the best heavyweight in the world right now," Okamoto wrote.

He went on to state that, in his opinion, Jones does not feel like the real heavyweight champion right now.

"I will use some verbiage here that some might not like, but let's keep it real - Jones is a paper champion of the UFC's heavyweight division."

Okamoto goes on to reference how Jones never beat Francis Ngannou for the belt and how, at the end of the day, he is 1-0 at heavyweight against a Ciryl Gane whose best win might be against Junior dos Santos in the last fight of his UFC career.

Bisping Responds To Okamoto's Take On Jones, Aspinall

One of the biggest advocates for Tom Aspinall in recent times has been the first UFC champion to come out of England, Michael Bisping.

The UFC commentator has been singing the praises of the interim champion for some time now, but even he couldn't get quite on board with some of Okamoto's comments.

He particularly found it hard to agree with the criticism of Jones, rather than Aspinall not being deserving of the top spot.

"He's right to a certain degree, he's only had one fight at heavyweight, talking about Jones. Tom Aspinall has fought his entire career at heavyweight and he's had a tremendous run in the UFC... but Jon Jones was the longtime, ultra dominant light heavyweight champion. Took some time out, came back at heavyweight. He had done what he had to do at light heavy, he'd beaten multiple generations of champions so he really left like he needed a fresh challenge. Comes back at heavyweight, at this point, Francis Ngannou isn't around anymore so the title was vacant. That's not his fault, it really isn't you can't hold that against him."

Bisping rounded out his thoughts by outlining that whilst he can see where Okamoto was coming from, he thinks referring to Jones as a "paper champion" is a step too far.

"To call him a paper champion, I don't agree with that. I understand the point Brett's making and I understand why he would say that Tom Aspinall is number one."

This article first appeared on MMA News and was syndicated with permission.

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