The heavyweight division of the UFC got more interesting when Jon Jones announced his plans to vacate the light heavyweight belt and move up. Jones has cleaned out most of the division over the course of his career, but new challenges await at heavyweight. One of those challenges could be a clash with Israel Adesanya, who will now almost certainly miss on a chance to take Jones on at light heavyweight.
Right now, of course, Adesanya is a middleweight. It makes the idea of a matchup at heavyweight a bit awkward. There’s a larger size gap between middleweight and heavyweight than there is between heavyweight and light heavyweight.
However, it doesn’t seem like the larger gap is deterring Adesanya from pursuing a fight with Jones at some point in the future. Maybe even the near future. Adesanya was open to the chance of fighting Jones at light heavyweight but wanted to defend his middleweight title first. He did that in March, against Yoel Romero. Now, jumping up for a high profile superfight isn’t off the cards.
Will the fight ever happen? Adesanya thinks so.
In a recent virtual media event, Adesanya had some strong words for Jones and said that he hasn’t moved away from his plans.
“One hundred percent. It doesn’t change my plans. My plan is still going forward as planned. So, yeah, same thing. 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,” Adesanya said.
He likened Jones to the pot calling the kettle black. He said, however, that he hopes current heavyweight contender Francis Ngannou doesn’t ‘break’ Jones – presumably because Adesanya himself still wants a shot at the former light heavyweight champ.
In any case, the fans win if this matchup happens – Adesanya has never lost and is currently 19-0 with a habit for entertaining wins, and Jones has a history of dominating some of the best competition in the UFC. If the two ever do meet at heavyweight, it’s almost guaranteed to be one of the closest and most entertaining bouts we’ve seen in a long time.