Stipe should not be in the title picture in the first place.
But he is and had the original title shot, so don't complain if you never beat him that you're seemingly behind him even if you've got a fake title.
This isn't hard. It's a self-inflicted wound by the UFC when they refused to simply do Stipe/Sergei as had literally been officially agreed upon as the backup fight if anything happened to Jon. They're the ones who introduced the curveball, while Jon and Stipe are right to sit here and say Aspinall's title means nothing.
Like, you guys do realize if Stipe had been the one who'd gotten injured we'd have gotten Jones/Sergei right? Sergei was the official agreed upon back up fighter by them. Jon would've fought Sergei unless you want to pretend he'd have turned down the official backup fighter he'd agreed upon.
Throwing Aspinall into things was the wrench that fucked everything up because nobody had ever agreed upon this. I'm all for Aspinall trying to claim supremacy, which he should do because he doesn't have it even if I agree he's the more worthy challenger.
A Jon who has only 1 win at HW is going to deny the guy who is on a 2 fight winning streak (7 wins at HW in the UFC)?
Your mma math is terrible.
Jon's 1 win was ranked #1, arguably beat the last champion (he didn't but there's a lot of retard scorers in MMA), and he did it effortlessly in 2 minutes when they'd only ever lost a 25 minute decision to the champ they again arguably beat.
Aspinall by contrast is on a streak of #10 Tybura and #2 Sergei.
Math is indeed hard for you. #1 > #2 >#10. Jon does have the best win.
The real issue is that nobody has a real definitive streak at HW going precisely because they didn't simply do Stipe/Sergei as had literally been officially agreed upon if Jon got injured. We're literally in a thread arguing Aspinall should fight Blaydes, who he has a loss to, and people saying he doesn't have to because he beat Sergei who beat Blaydes. They're the ones doing MMA math.