Jon Jones could or could not proceed preventing past UFC 309, but when he does, the reigning heavyweight champion has declared he could be keen to return for yet another struggle towards gentle heavyweight king Alex Pereira over Tom Aspinall.
Complicating Jones’ want is the truth that Aspinall presently is the UFC interim heavyweight champ, a title he claimed in November 2023 with a knockout of Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 295. That door was opened solely as a result of Jones suffered a pectoral harm that compelled him to withdraw from his unique date with Stipe Miocic.
If Jones, who’s flirted with retiring after UFC 309, defeats Miocic and continues his profession past Saturday night time’s important occasion, many (even perhaps nearly all of) followers and pundits consider he ought to unify the title with Aspinall, UFC CEO Dana White amongst them. However as far Jones is anxious, these individuals are merely misguided.
“Effectively, the interim championship shouldn’t have been there within the first place,” Jones stated Monday in an interview with Sportsnet’s Aaron Bronsteter. “The one cause there was an interim championship struggle was as a result of I received damage, they usually wanted to maintain the significance of that Madison Sq. Backyard occasion (UFC 295). However Sergei and Aspinall shouldn’t have been preventing for an interim title within the first place. They need to’ve simply been a substitute struggle, a important occasion. I believe making it an interim struggle was untimely, and now you’ve gotten a bunch of confused folks.”
Jones vs. Pereira for the BMF title?
When contemplating a future struggle with Pereira or Aspinall, Jones views “Poatan” because the matchup that can assist his legacy extra, which is necessary to him. In any case, it’s why Jones is preventing Miocic, who’s extensively thought-about the best heavyweight of all time, as a substitute of Aspinall, regardless of the previous champ’s three-and-a-half-year layoff.
Pereira, who’s the identical age as Jones (37), brings much more to the desk by way of credentials, having claimed the UFC middleweight title by knocking out Israel Adesanya earlier than he moved as much as Jones’ outdated stomping grounds of sunshine heavyweight and profitable 4 consecutive title fights.
If it’s the standing of the heavyweight champion that has everybody up in arms about why he ought to struggle Aspinall, Jones is keen to vacate so as to make a Pereira showdown occur.
“It’d be cool to struggle (Pereira) for the heavyweight championship, however I’d additionally willingly hand over the heavyweight championship,” Jones stated. “I walked away from the sunshine heavyweight championship, and I’d like to stroll away from this one, as nicely, on high, on (my) personal phrases, good head on (my) shoulders, making numerous cash. I like the place that I’m in proper now.”
Jones even has an concept for the UFC to think about ought to a struggle with Pereira come to fruition.
“Combating Pereira for the BMF belt, that’d be cool,” Jones stated. “We each have two belts in two weight courses. The night time we fought, we’d each be preventing for our third belt, which might be the BMF. How cool would that be?”
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