It appears that the final hurdle—doctors’ approval of Jon Jones’ hand—has been overcome. Today, the UFC announced via Twitter that Jones and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson have verbally agreed to fight for Jones’ UFC light heavyweight title at UFC 135.
Jones, who won the title with a TKO win over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at UFC 128 in March, was originally scheduled to face Rashad Evans in his first title defense. An injured hand forced Jones to withdraw from that fight, and Evans was subsequently booked to face Phil Davis at UFC 133 in Philadelphia, PA.
Jackson, a former UFC light heavyweight champion, earned the shot at Jones with a three-round unanimous decision victory over Matt Hamill at UFC 130. Prior to that fight Jackson earned a split-decision win over former champion Lyoto Machida at UFC 123.
Jackson took the UFC light heavyweight title from Chuck Liddell at UFC 71, knocking out “The Iceman” at the 1:53 mark of Round 1. Jackson would defend his title once, defeating Dan Henderson at UFC 75, unifying the UFC light heavyweight and Pride middleweight titles in the process. Jackson would lose the title in his next fight, dropping a unanimous decision victory to Forrest Griffin at UFC 86.
BetOnFighting.com has released the early odds for the fight, Jones is a -345 favorite over Jackson, who comes in at +275.
According to UFC.com, the following fights will also be on the Denver card:
Matt Hughes vs. Diego Sanchez
Damacio Page vs. “Kid” Yamamoto
Mark Hunt vs. Ben Rothwell
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