UFC light heavyweight champion, Jon Jones and newly-crowned UFC middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya are on a collision course now.?
Israel Adesanya fought Robert Whittaker in arguably the biggest fight in the history UFC middleweight division. And what Adesanya did last night at Marvel Stadium is spectacular, to say the least. Israel Adesanya knocked out Robert Whittaker to become the new undisputed middleweight champion. Then he went on to call out Paulo Costa for a fight and is likely to defend his title against him next.
However, Jones and Adesanya has a fair amount of back and forth between them up to this point. Both the fighters do not seem impressed with the recent accomplishments by the other. Israel Adesanya has even announced the venue and time frame for the super fight with Jon Jones.
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Before his fight with Whittaker, Adesanya said that he would be fighting Jones in Rogers Stadium in 2021 or sooner. Though Jon Jones did not appreciate the call out from Style Bender, at this point it seems that a fight between these two is inevitable.
Recently UFC heavyweight and former number one contender, Francis Ngannou started the fire by saying:
? think Adesanya is moving up to light heavyweight just to fight Jones.”
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Well, it did not take Jones to respond to that as he replied:
“By the time this kid gets his confidence together, I’ll probably already be in the heavyweight division. I don’t need to wait till 2021 to start believing myself.”
Now, this is something fans have been waiting to see for a meaningful period. Jones vs Adesanya is a very intriguing fight, but that is unlikely to happen soon since Adesanya is adamant to clear the middleweight division first before moving up to light heavyweight. Israel Adesanya has said that he wants to defend his title against fighters such as Paulo Costa, Jared cannonier and Yoel Romero before moving up to fight Jones.
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Meanwhile, there are not a lot of big fights for Jon Jones in the light heavyweight division which are compelling to the fans. Agreed, rematch with Santos, fight with Johny Walker, and the fight with Weidman that are great matchup, however, there are way bigger fights for Jon Jones at the heavyweight division.
We even came to know from Chael Sonnen that Jones is interested in moving up to heavyweight and his management is discussing for this move. At this moment, Jon Jones’s recent statement does nothing but solidify the rumors that Jon Jones is moving up to heavyweight division.