This past Saturday at UFC 253, Israel Adesanya (20-0) put on arguably the best performance of his career against Paulo Costa (13-1). Costa was looked at as Adesanya’s most dangerous challenger, and the champion made it look easy.
It was Adesanya’s second successful defense of his UFC middleweight crown. Of course, one of the more active voices on Twitter during UFC 253 was former UFC light heavyweight champion and current pound for pound #1, Jon Jones (26-1, 1 NC).
It is no secret that Jones and Adesanya do not like each other. Both men have gone back in forth over the past year, and a potential fight between the two men has been something that’s been discussed for a while.
With the way that things currently stand, the UFC needs to attempt to book this fight in 2021. Adesanya will likely defend his title one more time in early 2021 against the winner of Robert Whittaker – Jared Cannonier, but after that, the Jones fight is what needs to be made.
A rare chance for the UFC
In the UFC, opportunities like this don’t come along very often. It’s very rare that you have two dominant champions who might be the two best pound for pound fighters in the world and have the opportunity to fight each other.
Not too long ago, Anderson Silva was considered to be the GOAT in the UFC. He held the position that Jon Jones is currently in. For years, fans called for the UFC to book Silva against Georges St. Pierre and/or Jon Jones during Silva’s title reign.
Both fights would have given us as fans the chance to see who really was the best. However, the UFC was never able to make it happen before Silva lost his title. Still to this day, I wish we could have seen one of those fights happen.
However, this fight would be much different for the UFC. While it would let us really see who’s the best, it’s a fight that would have a ton of heat behind it. All of the factors that go into making a massive fight are there with Adesanya and Jones.
Two essentially undefeated and dominant champions who can’t stand the other. There would be no bigger fight that the UFC could put together in 2021. Of course, Jones has said he’s moving to heavyweight and Adesanya’s still got business to attend to, but the promotion should do what they can to make it happen next year.