Pereira believes Jones is not long for active competition and would rather get a few rounds in with the GOAT in the gym than try to fight him in in the cage.
UFC 306 went down at the Sphere on Saturday night and it was a star-studded affair with plenty of combat sports legends and celebrities in attendance. In the front row alone we had UFC champions Jon Jones and Alex Pereira sitting next to each other, and the two men clearly enjoyed their time hanging out and talking.
In various interviews with media outlets, Pereira discussed his time with Jones and how the two might end up training together for Jon’s UFC 309 scrap with Stipe Miocic on November 16th after “Poatan” fights Khalil Rountree Jr. at UFC 307 on October 5th.
“It was awesome to meet him, he’s a very nice guy,” Pereira told TNT Sports through his translator. “We talked, we talked about training together. People talk about me fighting Jon Jones, going up to the heavyweight division, but I don’t know if maybe he have just one fight left. So for me to worry about my weight class is something that’s maybe too much. Right now, maybe we’re going to start training together.”
Chama or no chama with Jon Jones #UFC306 pic.twitter.com/tPiZMLuQCt
— Legacy MMA (@Legacy__MMA) September 15, 2024
“We’ve been talking a little bit about training together for a long time, but I think now it’s going to happen,” he told Full Send MMA. “His fight’s going to be in November. every time you leave a fight it takes a week or two to recover from small injuries. But I think I’ll have enough time to go over there.”
“Today I saw him more fit than we last saw him, he looks really good and I want to grab his experience. People talk about us fighting, but people talk about him fighting one time, one or twice more. I don’t know if I’ll be able to share the cage with him, but I want to get the experience of training with him.”
This isn’t the first time Jones retiring after the Stipe fight has come up — when “Bones” returned to challenge for the vacant heavyweight title it was common knowledge amongst his training partners that he planned on winning the belt, defending it against Stipe — statistically the best UFC heavyweight champion ever — and then retiring with that extra juice on his legacy.
After sitting out a year with a pectoral injury, is Jones still sticking to that plan? With a high profile fight in November to hype up, he’s being a lot more tight lipped about the possibility of retirement. But Pereira clearly thinks it’s likely enough that he’s not even bothering to hype up a fight. Instead, he’d rather train with the legend while he has the chance, which tells you something about the kind of fighter he is.
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