UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones must be feeling confident about his prospects for 2013, considering he is already signalling that he will “definitely” move up to fight at heavyweight, probably sometime later next year.
Responding to a question posed to him by Dana White, on an online MetroPCS chat with fans, the 25-year-old Jones said (h/t MMA fighting):
“I’ll definitely move up to heavyweight… but it’ll probably be around 2013. Maybe at the end of 2013.”
Talk of Jon Jones moving up to heavyweight has been percolating ever since the light heavyweight burst on the scene and only grew louder after he captured the belt and almost cleaned out the division… almost.
As White has noted several times and Jones himself admits, there’s still plenty of work for him to do at 205 pounds.
Immediately facing him is a match against Chael Sonnen—an opponent barely worthy of Jones’ talent but still expected to be a massive draw for the UFC.
After Sonnen, there’s a fight against Dan Henderson, which has been in the works for almost a year after the veteran defeated Mauricio Rua to become number one contender.
However, an injury to Hendo left the division stalled, and now Lyoto Machida, a man Jones has already defeated, is back in the mix.
Machida and Henderson are set to fight for the number one contender spot sometime next year. After one of them gets a shot, young fighters Alexander Gustafsson, Phil Davis and the newly arrived Glover Teixeira are clamouring for a piece.
There are clearly plenty of fights that can still be made for Jones at 205 pounds, and the fighter insists he’s still very comfortable where he is.
“Right now I have a nutritionist and I’m starting to take the career a lot more seriously than I used to, so my weight cuts are getting a lot easier,” said Jones. “I walk around a lot thinner naturally. Right now I’m at, like, 225 (pounds). That’s a 20-pound cut. That’s really easy. So I might look bigger than most people when I’m fighting, but I’m really not.”
Still, having Jones, who’s become a UFC sensation in his short time in the sport, fighting at heavyweight is a tantalising prospect.
At 6’4″ with an 84.5” reach, he towers over most of his opponents at light heavyweight. However, there are plenty of fighters as tall as him in the higher weight class, not least the reigning heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos.
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