Jon Jones is a person in excessive demand nowadays.
After sitting out three years resulting from a contract dispute with the UFC, Jones returned to motion at UFC 28 and have become a two-division champion by seizing the vacant heavyweight title. It took him one other yr and a half to defend the belt, however he simply did that efficiently too with a one-sided beatdown of Stipe Miocic at UFC 309.
Who Jones will face subsequent, if anybody, is the massive query now. UFC CEO Dana White has stated if Jones needs to maintain combating, he’ll need to battle interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall subsequent. Jones, in the meantime, says he’s able to drop the belt with a view to battle Alex Pereira subsequent. After which there’s Francis Ngannou, the unique superfight opponent for Jones that by no means got here collectively.
Ngannou simply beat Renan Ferreira within the PFL, dispatching his opponent in below a spherical. Following the PFL’s massive 2024 season last, stories got here out that the promotion’s Saudi traders are hoping to make a Ngannou vs. Jones cross-promotion occur. And now Ngannou is looking Jones out on social media.
Jones has been fairly occupied these days going forwards and backwards with haters accusing him of ducking Aspinall.
“Loopy how being referred to as a ‘duck’ pays higher than most of you Web robust guys will make in a lifetime,” he wrote in a latest X publish. “Two fights in 4 years and nonetheless one of many greatest names within the sport? That’s not ducking, that’s successful. God’s blessings hit completely different, keep mad.”
“Blessings make haters uncomfortable, however they will’t change it,” Ngannou wrote cryptically. “There’s just one battle, the precise battle that can multiply your blessings. #NgannouVSJones.”
Was that first half a dig at Ngannou’s greatest hater, Dana White? The second half was fairly clear although: the massive cash, the multiples of what he makes in UFC now, the ‘f— you’ multiples, will solely come if he fights Francis Ngannou.
May Jones vs. Ngannou truly occur? Effectively, all issues are attainable when loopy Saudi cash enters the equation. However as we talked about earlier, the UFC already has two massive cash fights lined up for Jones. And Ngannou has one MMA battle left on his PFL contract … if the UFC simply waits one other yr, Jones vs. Ngannou might occur with out one other promotion being concerned in any respect.
Then once more, superfights are inclined to by no means occur when one waits for the right circumstances to place them collectively. There’s by no means a greater time than proper now for Jones vs. Ngannou to get booked. That’s a blessing we doubt we’ll see, although.
