Israel Adesanya and Jon Jones will probably never fight because their weight difference is just too great. ‘The Last Stylebender’ is the middleweight champion, while former light-heavyweight champion Jones – that’s strange to write – is ready to jump up to heavyweight.
But Adesanya believes that Jones will cross his path in the future. In sum, he says that he will even move up to heavyweight himself in the future. Of course, this could just be talk and an attempt to get media attention, but it’s obviously working?
However, Adesanya has an actual fight to worry about in the near future. He will defend his middleweight title for the second time, with the frightening Paulo Costa next in line. If he gets past the insanely muscled Brazilian, then he can think about Jones.
Heavyweight
MMA Fighting asked Adesanya if he was still interested in fighting Jones after his move up a division. It’s clear that this presents an obstacle to them potentially fighting. Once you’re allowed to eat what you want, it’s very difficult to let that go again. But ‘Stylebender’ was bullish. He said:
“One hundred percent. It doesn’t change my plans. My plan is still going forward as planned. So, yeah, same thing.”
Scathing
“Look how long it took him to move up to heavyweight, finally. Like I said, he was expecting me to do it straight away, when I hadn’t even defended my belt yet. I’ve defended my belt twice now, I want to defend it a few more times and then do what I set out to do.
But, yeah, the pot calling the kettle black on his part. Go put some f*cking muscle on your chopstick legs and go fight Francis Ngannou and watch him break you. I hope he doesn’t, though. Maybe he does. Who knows?”
Challenge
Meanwhile, Jones issued a challenge to his former division. He told light-heavyweights that he would donate $100,000 to a charity of their choice if they could defend the belt six times. Jones successfully defended his title 11 times in total, either side of Daniel Cormier’s time as champion. However, nobody took the strap away from him and he doesn’t believe anybody will come close to his record. He tweeted:
“First light heavyweight to win six championships in a row, I’ll pay $100,000 to whatever charity of their liking. I’ll be waiting,”
Furthermore, he provided the update that everybody wants. Jones confirmed that he is currently looking into a sustainable weight gain process for a potential move up to heavyweight. But he also has to agree to terms with the UFC before this can happen.
