Latest news with #Johnny-come-lately
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Is Tom Aspinall getting Michael Chandlered?
If you did one of those time lapses of Tom Aspinall sitting around waiting on Jon Jones for the past five-and-a-half months, you'd see the seasons come and go through the window behind him and perhaps the first gray hairs of spring starting to bloom. Aspinall was hopeful he'd get Jones soon enough to unify the heavyweight title. But with each passing day you have to wonder if he's … oh God, it's not this again, is it? Is … is he getting Chandlered? Advertisement Poor Michael Chandler waited around for Conor McGregor for a long, long time — nearly two years in the earner's portion of his twilight — only to learn that the fight was nothing more than a mirage. Just a crumb trail to Nedsville. It was never going to happen. McGregor messes with people's lives for sport. At the end of the day, the only thing Chandler got for his time and patience was a better understanding of his own gullibility. I don't want to call Aspinall gullible, but that's where this kind of optimism often ends up. Especially because Jon Jones has become a bit of a tease. We don't know what he wants to do, but we do know nobody plays harder to get than him. If he's using his seven-foot wingspan at all these days, it's to hold his own legacy over everybody's head, just out of reach of the nearest contender. Or, in the case of Tiptoe Tom, the nearest (interim) champion. How deep does Aspinall's patience roll? How long before his surprisingly deft footwork turns to happy feet? He just watched his 32nd birthday come and go a couple of weeks back, which is a reminder that time moves in only one direction. Life is too short to wait on someone else's timetable. I mean, King Richard III was dead at 32. Advertisement A popular refrain right now among paid professionals is to say something like, 'I don't think Jon Jones is afraid of Tom Aspinall,' a qualifier just to be on the safe side of things. Who wants to accuse one of the UFC's all-time greats of being afraid of anyone? Yet so much in the UFC is often left to appearances. Within these appearances are inferences, and within these inferences are strong suspicions that turn into opinions that turn into arguments and, at some point, in the minds of the certain, they round a corner to become 'fact.' Let's face it, the appearance right now is that Jones is a legacy germaphobe who doesn't want some Johnny-come-lately's grubby little hands soiling up his body of work. He doesn't see anybody as worthy (except maybe Alex Pereira). He doesn't see enough zeroes on the offers. He doesn't see a four-month training camp as adequate. He sees the little rubber ducks that show up at events, but he's never been much for fowl. If he's a lion, as he's likened himself to be so many times in the glorious past, he's bushed by the afternoon sun. Since the pandemic hit in 2020, the dude's fought twice — twice in five years. Once against Ciryl Gane (which was impressive as hell). Once against Stipe Miocic (or rather, the husk of Stipe Miocic). UFC heavyweight champ Jon Jones has been hesitant to agree to a fight with interim champ Tom Aspinall, leaving him waiting in the wings. (Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports) (USA TODAY Sports / Reuters) The Francis Ngannou fight that was tailor-made as a blockbuster event a couple of years back? Didn't happen. Advertisement Which is why this all feels so familiar. And it's why the rubber duckies stay afloat. If Jones doesn't end up fighting the interim champion Aspinall, a big part of that legacy he's protecting will be that he protected his legacy. The old ouroboros, no matter the direction of the spin. The UFC sets up 'interim' titles as placeholder belts until the champion is ready to go. It's a 'stand-in accessory,' a kind of fight game promise ring. In most cases, the real champion is coming back from something more definitive, like an injury. Jones? He's just idling with the title. His feet are kicked up. He's got the heavyweight division buckled in for his joyride. Is he holding out for $15 million? From the sounds of it, the UFC has come correct. They have tried to make the fight. It's all up to Jones. Anyone who is a fight fan wants that fight, but Jonny Bones hasn't signed. Will he today? Tomorrow? Next week? Next month? Jones likes to keep everyone jonesing, just like that Irish fellow who turned a good man's fate into the verb. Advertisement Chandlered. Who knows, maybe he has an aversion to dotted lines. But if the UFC moves on and books Aspinall into any other fight, it should be for the actual heavyweight title, with no interim tag. If Jones doesn't want to defend it, then the UFC must take it from him. Aspinall has been willing to wait for Jones, but the UFC shouldn't. How much time is too much time? Aspinall defended the interim title last July, and is no closer to knowing the answer nine months later.
Telegraph
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
A sporting fad might rob us of the next Wimbledon star
The craze for the Johnny-come-lately game of padel tennis, an addictive hybrid of squash and tennis, is sweeping the country – but not among those living near the quaint and affluent Northway Tennis Club in Hampstead. Local residents are massing, probably with pitchforks and flaming torches, to object to the club's plans to install five new padel courts. They insist the 'noisy' game will disrupt their 'tranquillity and mental wellbeing'. At first sight it looks like classic Nimby-ism. But if they've lived with the blood-curdling oaths and meltdowns emanating from most tennis clubs during knife-edge league matches with a title at stake, they can surely put up with a bit of 'splat…splat' and cheerful padel banter. But I suspect it's not just the noise that bothers the genteel residents. Closer inspection reveals a whole class divide between lawn tennis, still bedevilled by its charmingly retro, bourgeois origins, (C'mon Tim!) – all cucumber sandwiches and Miss Joan Hunter-Dunn – and the phenomenon known as padel. With celebrity devotees including David Beckham, Emmanuel Macron and Serena Williams, padel is invariably described as 'the 'world's fastest-growing sport'', with an estimated 30 million players globally and around 50,000 Brits giving it a go. But what's the appeal, and why do so many within the tennis establishment fear its soaraway success since its invention in Acapulco in 1969 by a jet-set couple, keen to alleviate the boredom of long days spent sunning oneself, cocktail in hand, beside pristine seas? A few weeks ago, in windswept North Cornwall, I played my second ever game of padel tennis – and my first in 40 years. My original initiation was on a sun-drenched court in Andalusia with an old tennis mucker Judy Congdon, later Spanish ladies' padel champion, thanks to remorseless consistency and low cunning. The Cornish outing, a 'cruel but fair' doubles with three tennis and Real Tennis buffs with a 'die-for-the-Emperor' approach, was exhilarating, if somewhat crude. Thwacking the bouncy ball over a net and around the back and side walls of the enclosed court with solid paddles, like large table tennis bats, we ran like rabbits for three hours, eventually collapsing in a giggling heap. It was huge fun and even at our rudimentary level, we could instantly play a hard-fought match. Happy days, you'd think. But as President of Warwickshire Tennis, I hear endless club officials bewailing the rise of this cuckoo in the nest. The LTA has embraced padel warmly, directing county associations to divert sparse funds to build padel facilities. It's irresistible for cash-strapped tennis clubs as padel courts, costing as little as £45,000 are heavily used and a licence to print money. The LTA evidently believed padel would act as a gateway drug to the more complex and technical sport of tennis. Wrong. Too often talented youngsters try padel, get an immediate buzz and stay with it for life. It's hard enough to attract working-class kids into tennis – though Davis Cup hero Dan Evans, Warwickshire's favourite scamp, would make the perfect poster boy for this. The tennis equivalent of 'The Victor' comic's 'Alf Tupper, the Tough of the Track', Evans's silky skills, nurtured in the mean streets of Hall Green, have brought him undreamed of fame – and the national game is missing a trick if it doesn't exploit his 'bad boy' allure – just don't let him take up padel!
