Jon Jones is seemingly no longer interested in a super fight with Israel Adesanya.
Adesanya is coming off a unanimous decision defeat to Jan Blachowicz in their light heavyweight title fight at UFC 259 this past weekend. The expectation was that Adesanya would win and go on to face Jones in a highly-anticipated grudge match.
Instead, Adesanya lost and is now heading back to the middleweight division with Jones having plenty to say about his defeat. While the setback does hurt the chances of a super fight — especially the appeal of it — Adesanya’s coach Eugene Bareman recently stated that Jones would still fight his pupil in the future.
“This fight had nothing to do with Jon Jones,” he told Submission Radio. “The choice to take it had zero to do with Jon Jones. Jon Jones, that fight hasn’t fizzled away. Jon Jones is a businessman. Jon Jones understands how the pay-per-view market works and he understands where the money is, and that’s why this fight doesn’t fizzle away.
“Because at the end of the day, if it makes money, it makes sense. And Jon knows who the biggest star in the sport is at the moment and who can get him paid the most. That is why the fight won’t fizzle out. So, Jon’s gonna, if he hasn’t already, I’m sure he’s probably been on social media and gone through all the antics that he usually does, but at the end of the day, the facts are the facts. The fight doesn’t fizzle out, because they’re the biggest guys in the sport and they bring in the most money, and that’s why the fight still exists.”
Jones, however, disagrees.
Responding to Bareman’s comments, the former light heavyweight king seemed to shut down a potential super fight as he believes it would be irresponsible of the coach to let his fighter face him.
Especially given how Adesanya struggled in the wrestling department against the bigger Blachowicz.
“Give it up coach, we’ve all seen your cards, your boy has almost no take down defense or offense off his back,” Jones tweeted. “Now you’re just being a cloud trout, if you would honestly send him in there against a 260lb wrestler after that last performance, you don’t care about his well being.”
Do you think the fight can still happen?