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“Jon Jones should be fighting at heavyweight. Jon Jones since he was 19 years old could be fighting at heavyweight.”
There’s a lot of buzz surrounding a potential superfight between newly-crowned UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and reigning UFC light heavyweight kingpin Jon Jones, but not everyone believes it would be a good idea.
Speaking on the latest episode of Below the Belt, podcast host and sports personality Brendan Schaub said Jones is too big for ‘The Last Stylebender’ and believes ‘Bones’ should be competing at heavyweight.
“I’ll tell you what I can’t f*cks with, and I was talking to a buddy about this yesterday, Andrew Schulz who’s very close to ‘Stylebender.’ And everyone keeps talking about, ‘oh him vs. Jon Jones.’ I don’t know what we’re doing,” Schaub said, per Fernando Quiles Jr. of MMA News. I don’t know if it’s cause comic book movies or the thing we’re living in this fantasy land. Do you know how f*cking big Jon Jones is? Physically [he’s] enormous, [he’s] enormous. Jon Jones should be fighting at heavyweight. Jon Jones since he was 19 years old could be fighting at heavyweight.”
Schaub went on to state that, while it’s fun to theorize about the match-up, the UFC shouldn’t ever allow Adesanya in the same cage as Jones.
“I think the unknown in going, ‘if this guy fought this guy,’ and if Fedor fought Cain in his prime. That’s fun on the forums and of course to talk about. But when people start talking about it like it’s really gonna happen, and I think this Conor vs. Floyd thing kinda opened up the f*cking floodgates and then the double ‘champ-champ’ stuff and all that, we’ve gotten down this weird road where we wanna see these insane fights. I like the sh*t talk between them, I’m all about it. But as far as a real fight in the Octagon, what are we talking about?”
Adesanya’s first middleweight title defense is expected to be against Paulo Costa, although the fight hasn’t yet been booked. Jones, who last fought at UFC 239 where he defended his light heavyweight title against Thiago Santos, said he has a ‘big fight announcement’ coming up but didn’t reveal an opponent.