From the same interview:
Can you explain the back and forth with Jones from your point of view?
It's quite simple, I want to fight Jones but Jones wants to fight Miocic and that's it. Jones is great at deflecting the truth; he's like a politician. When I start talking about wanting to fight him,
he starts talking about resumes and history and the things that he's done that's better than me. I have no qualms whatsoever about saying that his resume is better than mine. What I say
in return is "it doesn't matter about resumes", I just want to fight him and beat him right now and he doesn't want to do that. There's not one interview, one post, one clip anywhere online
where Jon Jones says he wants to fight me. I don't know why.
Why?
Jon Jones is smart and he's taking the easier fight for more money. If the shoe was on the other foot, I'd do exactly the same thing. The guy is going to get a lot more money for fighting
Stipe probably, and it's going be way easier of a fight as well. Jones doesn't feel he needs to jump in with a young dangerous guy with no miles on the clock. He'd rather jump in with 40 year
old Stipe who hasn't fought for four years. It's obvious that's what he's doing, anybody with a brain would do that.
What are the UFC saying?
The UFC do not want it, I don't know why this is happening, money I guess. I don't know what's going on, it's completely unheard of that when you've got a healthy champion - and I know Jon
Jones isn't healthy at the moment but he will become healthy - and when he returns it's completely unheard of. It's strange. People say 'I knew it was going to happen this way when I took the
interim fight' - I didn't. I thought that the interim fight meant I'd get the next shot and I'm quite disappointed that I've been put to the side, so I'm stuck and I don't really like it.
He said you would not add to his legacy?
The guy is trying to give everyone a history lesson everytime he speaks and I respect what he's done so much, but we're talking about right now, we are not talking five years ago, so will I add
to his legacy? Probably not as much as Stipe to be honest. I do understand his side of things but I'd wish he'd come out and say 'Tom, I'm not fighting you and these are the reasons why’ -
the ones we've just talked about, but he won't.
Does Aspinall-Jones ever happen?
No, I don’t think so, I think he will retire before he fights me. He's already said as much. He's a smart guy and a politician the way he deflects questions and sneakily says he's the guy that's
going to retire and not stick around longer than he should.