UFC Insider Thinks Jon Jones Will Get $30 Million

UFC CEO Dana White is dead set on arranging a fight between heavyweight champion Jon ‘Bones’ Jones and heavyweight interim champion Tom Aspinall this year, MMA Weekly reports.

It is just a matter of negotiations between both fighters.

UFC commentator Joe Rogan recently said on his podcast that he’s heard through the grapevine that Jones is asking for $30 million to fight Aspinall.

Former UFC dual-division champion Daniel Cormier doesn’t think Jones will be paid that much for the fight but doesn’t think what Jones has asked for is an ‘outlandish ask’.

“Now when you start looking at it like that, you start going, I don’t know if his ask is as crazy as people are saying,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “You can do 16 mil at the gate. You can do whatever you do on pay-per-view. You’ve got sponsorships for the fight night. Those aren’t yours; you are bringing them on, but there are sponsors on fight night. Now that ask is not so crazy.

“Rogan thinks the UFC will pay the $30 million to get Jon Jones in there with Tom Aspinall. I’m not sure he gets to 30, but if you ask for 30 and you get 20 or 15, that’s a win for Jon Jones on his way out. Especially living in Albuquerque, (N.M.) where everything is so dang cheap, he’s not living in California.”

Cormier continued recounting his time competing in the UFC, saying he doesn’t remember being paid as much as the top fighters are now.

“I’ll tell you guys, as a person who has been involved in big fights, a person who has sold pay-per-views, a person who at his time was at the top of the pay scale in the UFC as the heavyweight and light heavyweight champion, $30 million was literally a world away from anything we were making,” Cormier said. “I remember when I got paid in New York. I got a big bump to take a fight on three weeks’ notice, which ultimately became my salary. People were astounded with the number. But I will tell you it was a fraction of what that number that he’s asking for is. It was nowhere near that. But I’ve heard now rumors that the higher-end guys are making more. The Israel Adesanya, the Jon Jones, the Stipe Miocic. I heard that Stipe Miocic made big money for the last fight.”

While the negotiations continue, it will be interesting to see what agreement Jones and the UFC come to and if it will amplify the chatter around the most anticipated fight for 2025.