The UFC recently lost one of its most talked about potential superfights when UFC president Dana White acknowledged that the promotion was going to look to book welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre against Nick Diaz, rather than matching St-Pierre against middleweight champion Anderson Silva.
That left a Silva versus light heavyweight champion Jon Jones as the other possible superfight, but hopes for that fight seemed to have dimmed a bit as well—if one takes Jones’ recent comments at face value.
The UFC light heavyweight champion, appearing on Tuesday night’s episode of UFC Tonight, made it clear that his current focus is solely on his upcoming title defense against Chael Sonnen.
As for the potential Silva fight, Jones said, “My door’s not really open for the fight.”
When pressed further on the issue, Jones did concede that he could see only one way a fight against Silva would be of interest to him.
“I’m happy where I’m at, but If Anderson moves up to light heavyweight and challenges me for my belt, that’s a different scenario,” Jones said.
Considering that Silva’s most recent fight—a first round TKO victory over Stephan Bonnar at UFC 153—was contested at light heavyweight, the idea is not out of the question.
In addition to his recent victory over Bonnar at light heavyweight, Silva also has a 2009 first round knockout victory over former UFC light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin on his record.
The middleweight champion has two fights left on his current UFC contract. While speaking at a question and answer session in Toronto before UFC 154, Silva told the assembled media (which included B/R MMA) that he hoped one of those fights was going to be with St-Pierre, while the other would be “maybe Jon Jones. I don’t know.”
With the St-Pierre fight off the table for now, the Jones fight may be the one that UFC president Dana White pushes for.
If White does pursue the Silva versus Jones bout, one thing’s for sure, he’ll want to negotiate Silva down from his earlier asking price of half the UFC.
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