UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya wants to take his time with a potential clash against light heavyweight king Jon Jones.
Adesanya and Jones have been bickering back-and-forth with one another for the past several months. “Stylebender” has said he envisions a fight between himself and Jones inside Raiders Stadium in Las Vegas in 2021. First, the Nigerian-born champion wants to get a few title defenses under his belt at 185 pounds. Then, he’ll chase Jones up to light heavyweight, or heavyweight.
Despite these comments, Jones thinks Adesanya is scared of him. Speaking to MMA Fighting on a UFC 247 media conference call, Jones noted Adesanya’s past kickboxing experience, saying, “this isn’t K1.” He also points to the fact that Adesanya rather face him later, instead of right now, and sees this as a sign of fear.
“At the end of the day, this isn’t K-1,” Jones said. “This isn’t whatever league he used to fight in. I’ve watched him stepping over here, and literally, I’ve watched him with his legs stiff. His swagger is exciting to the fans, but I know a thousand people like him. I grew up with people like him. He doesn’t impress me the way he impresses everyone else.
“He’s scared. That’s all it is. When he says you’ve got to respect the game or the game will humble you, he’s talking about not fighting me now or me beating his ass cause he’s scared. When you let a fighter like me know that you’re not prepared to fight me today and you wish you had another year to prepare and all that sh*t, it lets me know your mental state. That’s all I need to know.”
If Adesanya thinks Jones will be a lesser version of himself later down the road, as opposed to now, Jones thinks the middleweight champion is in for a rude awakening. Jones claims he’s barely grasping the concept of structuring his training camps, and that also entails the growth of his teammates, better recovery methods, sharpening his tools, and so much more.
“If he feels he’s not cut out for the challenge now, if he honestly thinks I’m going to be somehow a weaker version of myself next year, he’s sadly mistaken,” Jones said. “I’m just now figuring out training camps and figuring out different ways of healing and recovery and all these things.
“My teammates are getting stronger. I’m only a purple belt in jiu-jitsu. If he thinks I’m getting slower and weaker, he’s sadly mistaken. He’s scared today. He’s made that very clear to the public. Nothing’s going to change next year.”
In the meantime, both Jones and Adesanya have title defenses to worry about. Jones headlines the UFC 247 pay-per-view (PPV) event this weekend (Sat. February 8, 2020) from the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. He’ll be putting his title up for grabs against undefeated challenger Dominick Reyes.
Adesanya will be taking on a different test. He makes his first-ever UFC middleweight title defense in the UFC 248 PPV headliner against Yoel Romero. That fight will take place on March 7 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. It will be interesting to see if Jones or Adesanya have words for each other after their respective fights.
What do you think about Jones’ claims that Adesanya is “scared” to fight him?