Alex Pereira is already the biggest active UFC superstar. The current face of the sport, the light heavyweight champ is at the top of the MMA game. And when you’re at the pinnacle, there’s nowhere to go but down. But not for Pereira. Already a two division champion, there is one fight that could make him an even bigger star, perhaps even put him in the Conor Mcregor league.

Pereira, of course, has repeatedly said he wants to fight fighting Jon Jones. ‘Bones’ is on-board, and feels that a win over ‘Poatan’ would do wonders for his legacy. But Dana White doesn’t like the idea, and the fight seemed dead on arrival. But Chael Sonnen thinks there is one way Jones-Pereira at heavyweight does happen.

“If I look at Pereira-Jones, that fight does seem to me to be very easy to make if Pereira were to lose to Ankalaev. Now all of a sudden Pereira moves up, you’ve still got the Aspinal and Jon and that’s still the fight to make. And that problem’s about to get figured out. But you’re also put in a little bit of an easier position as a matchmaker,” ‘Uncle Chael’ said on his YouTube channel.

“Even though you want to make that fight, making a fight at heavyweight for a title, at least by probability, by just basic numbers, is now twice as easy to do. And I think that if you would ever get to a Pereira-Jones, I think it’s because you have not gotten to an Aspinal-Jones,” he added.

The UFC are trying to make the Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall heavyweight title unification fight since last year. And at the moment, the ball seems to be in Jones’ court. Aspinall has agreed, as is Dana White, who thinks Jones-Aspinall will “probably be the biggest fight we’ve ever done.” And Sonnen feels that Jones, in fact, will not agree to fight Aspinall for reasons we will discuss more in depth later.

Anyhow, Sonnen thinks that if Pereira indeed wants to fight Jones, the best and quickest way would be to lose his light heavyweight belt to Magomed Ankalev at their UFC 313 clash this Saturday. Which does seem quite possible. After all, the Dagestani challenger has a pretty good ground game, which Pereira sorely lack. Many, in fact, expect Ankalaev to take down the Brazilian and give him hell there, like Jan Blachowicz did, to great success at UFC 291. And the other part of the equation, Jones-Aspinall not happening also seems pretty possible at the moment.

Tom Aspinall gives worrying update on Jon Jones fight

Many fans, in fact, fear that a Jones-Aspinall fight will never materialize. But Dana White is confident that it will. When a fan wrote that we will never get Jones-Aspinall during one of the UFC CEO’s Instagram Lives last month, White assured them that “It’s coming. Relax.” Which would make it seem like White feels the fight close to being done.

However, that is not the impression one gets from Aspinall, who claimed Jones and the UFC have yet to agree terms. “I want the fight. I’ve been on record and said that I want the fight. I’ve been on the phone with the UFC saying that I want the fight… He’s [Jones is] holding it up right now, it’s his side, that’s the truth of it. The UFC really, really want the fight to happen… It’s just does he want to put himself in a position where he’s comfortable enough financially to take the risk that he’s taking to fight me. And that is where we’re at,” Aspinall said in a video on his YouTube channel earlier this week. Aspinall is a bad stylistic matchup for Jones.

The Englishman has a similarly well-rounded game as ‘Bones’ and has age, strength, and size on his side to boot. Which is why Jones has asked for “f—k you money” for Aspinall, and it seems the UFC are not willing to pay ‘Bones’ what he wants. Which, in turn, means that the Jones-Aspinall fight never happening, and as ‘Uncle Chael’ pointed out, increases the chances of Jones fighting Alex Pereira, instead. What do you think about Chael Sonnen’s thoughts on the Jones-Pereira matchup?