He officially retired and UFC elevated Aspinall elevated to full Heavyweight Champion.
Bones retires with only 1 loss on his record and despite what the now retired former 155lb champ claimes being undefeated while I think Bones has at times been a POS he’s the best Pound for Pound fighter in UFC history. His lone loss was a TKO related to a knee injury which could happen to anybody.
I think we all know Dana and TKO didn’t wanna force Jones to give the title as they saw massive dollar signs and Dana legit had long time loyalty to JBJ but I suspect it became too much after 2+yrs since he fought and won against Caryl Gane for the belt in 2023 for the powers that be to ignore. This especially after Aspinall basically put out a shit or get off the pot video proclaiming JBJ was obviously retired and he was the real champion. Seems he was right.