Jon Jones doesn’t want to fight Chael Sonnen on eight days notice. For that reason, he refused a fight with the former middleweight at UFC 151, and that decision ultimately led to the card’s demise.
When Bones was moved to UFC 152, Lyoto Machida was named as the replacement for an injured Dan Henderson, but The Dragon mysteriously turned down the championship opportunity.
With Machida out of the picture, Jones still needed an opponent for Sept. 22. Clearly, the best candidate for the position is middleweight contender Vitor Belfort. Wait. What?
If the short notice was the true reason that Jones wouldn’t face Sonnen at UFC 151, why isn’t the champion facing Oregon’s favorite wrestler at UFC 152?
Only hours ago, the announcement was made that Jon Jones will defend his championship against The Phenom in the new main event of UFC 152.
No one seems to understand why or how Belfort appeared in the picture. After all, Chael Sonnen has been engaged in a Twitter war with the champion. He looked like a hero on Thursday when he offered to save an endangered event.
In terms of marketability, it is a no-brainer that Sonnen is a better selection than Belfort. Fans are certainly willing to pay for Chael in a championship bout. In fact, his UFC 148 rematch with Anderson Silva is one of the rare events to break 1,000,000 buys on pay-per-view.
How about rankings? Neither Belfort nor Sonnen has been a light-heavyweight in recent history, so both men are outside of the divisional top 10. While Sonnen doesn’t get the advantage here, he isn’t hurt either.
Ultimately, I feel that the decision came down to the fact that Chael Sonnen is coming off of a loss. While Belfort’s latest bouts are victories over non-ranked opponents like Yoshihiro Akiyama and Anthony Johnson, he has momentum on his side.
Sonnen, Belfort or someone else: Who do you think should face Jon Jones next month?
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