'Unpredictable' Jones afraid to lose - Aspinall

You can follow live text commentary of UFC 309 from 03:00 GMT on Sunday, 17 November on the BBC Sport website and app

I think Jon Jones is scared to lose and I understand why - he's one of the best to ever do it.

I agree with what Jones said, that if he beat me it would do nothing for his legacy.

But I don’t want to fight him for his legacy, I want to fight him for the UFC title. I’m not bothered about his legacy, that’s his business.

It wasn’t meant to be this way really, with everyone asking Jon about me - it's Jon and Stipe Miocic's fight week at UFC 309.

It’s the media who keep dragging it in - asking Jon if he will fight me and he is not happy about it, evidently.

He could have easily killed it for himself. He could have killed the topic of me being the interim champion and just said "I’m focusing on Stipe this week", but he didn’t.

Jon made this about him but it’s not about Jon, it’s about the title.

Ask my dad how many times we’ve heard Jon Jones’ name this week and he can tell you exactly how many. He’s got a clicker for every time Jones gets mentioned to me.

How many are we on now? Seventy-seven, I think. And that’s just one click per person, you only get one go.

The T-shirt I wore with my face on it that says 'Hello Jon, I have nothing against you personally, I just think I'm better than ya' - I'm just joking.

I didn’t want to annoy him, I don’t want to annoy anybody.

Charlie, my social media guy, came up with the idea. We thought it was a cool design and it was taking the mickey out of myself more than anything.

Americans can get offended very easily sometimes, where it’s just standard British humour, isn’t it? You take the mickey out of yourself and other people. But Jon’s got very touchy about it.

I’m not hoping to bump into Jon this week. He honestly doesn’t interest me at all. I don’t want to create a beef that isn’t there, I just want the title and that’s all.

It’s been weird being the back-up fighter for the main event in the sense that I can’t fully relax, and then I can’t fully be into fight mode.

I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to fight but it’s still in the back of my mind a little bit.

For example this week I went for a meal with some friends, but still left pretty early and didn’t drink or eat bad. When usually I would if I wasn’t fighting.

I don’t want to fight. I don’t want anyone to get injured. These guys should fight each other and then move on, that’s it.

I hope they fight each other, hope it goes well and then we can all move on from it and move forward with the division.

Stipe is getting overlooked for this bout. There’s a big narrative that Jon is the greatest of all time that the UFC are pushing, and maybe he is.

But Stipe, even though he's 42 and hasn't fought since the knockout loss to Francis Ngannou in 2021, he definitely has a chance in the fight.

Stipe has the power advantage in his hands but I think Jon is way more athletic, and Jon has more ways to win. So I would give the edge to Jon, but I wouldn’t be surprised either way.

I have no idea what will happen after the fight or if either fighter will retire.

I don’t know Jon personally but I think it’s pretty apparent from this week’s antics already that he’s a pretty unpredictable character.

But I hope it’s me fighting for the heavyweight title, however that looks.

It doesn’t matter if I fight Jon, if he relinquishes the belt, if he waits it out for a bit and then we fight, whatever.

My focus is just to get the belt. Jon and everybody else are irrelevant.