Jon Jones knows the money is at Heavyweight.
UFC 285 this weekend (Sat., March 5, 2023) will play host to Jones’ long-awaited Heavyweight debut when he battles for the vacant title opposite Ciryl Gane. While the original expectation of a Francis Ngannou megafight was huge on paper, Jones feels there was another Heavyweight out there who would have superseded Ngannou in terms of promotional value and story.
“I think fighting Brock Lesnar would have been really cool,” Jones told Sporting News when asked who his No. 1 dream opponent would be. “Brock isn’t the most technical guy, but he has a massive fan base, he’s a lot bigger than me, and it would have been one of those really cool David and Goliath kind of situations. It would have been really cool for cross-sport promoting, and I think we both would have done great things for our family and for our team. Financially, that would have been massive.”
Lesnar, 45, and Jones have fought on the same UFC card twice in their memorable careers. UFC 87 in Aug. 2008 marked the event where each man scored their first Octagon victories, seeing Heath Herring and Andre Gusman suffer unanimous decision defeats.
The duo of former champions were supposed to compete alongside each other at UFC 200, but that plan was nixed after Jones failed a pre-fight drug test. Coincidentally again, Lesnar wound up also failing a test after defeating Mark Hunt via unanimous decision, resulting in the win being overturned to a no contest. Lesnar has since returned to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) as a professional wrestler.
Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 285 fight card right here, starting with the early ESPN+ “Prelims” matches online, which are scheduled to begin at 6:15 p.m. ET, then the remaining undercard on ESPN/ESPN+ at 8 p.m. ET, before the PPV main card start time at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+ PPV.
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