There was nothing but love on display during a meeting between Israel Adesanya and Jon Jones.
The beef between Israel Adesanya and Jon Jones — who went through a fiery series of back and forths in 2020 and 2021 — looks officially squashed.
“The Last Stylebender” had a big money “super” fight against “Bones” in mind when he moved up to Light Heavyweight to challenge Jan Blachowicz for the belt. He lost that fight, and then Jones made his debut at Heavyweight. Since then, Adesanya seemed to realize fighting “Bones” was a pipe dream and things chilled out.
Now, the two are canoodling on Meta’s new Twitter clone, Threads. Adesanya posted a video of the meeting, declaring “Life is one big cartoon!! #zoinks.”
“This motherf—er Jones,” Adesanya says jokingly as Jones puts his arm around him. “Hey, hey, hey, hey, chill champ! It’s all love.”
“Bless this king!” Jones exclaims as they shake hands.
Israel Adesanya hanging out with Jon Jones
The beef is squashed lol pic.twitter.com/fIzbxYdsvK
— Mircea (@MMAMircea) July 6, 2023
“Blessed up, king,” Adesanya replies.
At the start of June, Adesanya explained why he’d suddenly turned around on feuding with the pound-for-pound great.
“Growth is something you have to go through as a human being, as a man especially,” he said on Logan Paul’s YouTube channel. “Maturity. There was a point where we were … ah, f—k. I came to the UFC, I felt like — it’s up to him to admit this — he was a fan. But then he was kind of like, ‘Ah, there’s another coming in this game and just taking the shine.’ But there’s enough room for us both to shine … You don’t have to hate on me for doing what I’m doing. We can be in our own lanes and be great.”
While nothing is officially booked, Adesanya is expected to return to action at UFC 293 in Sydney, Australia, to defend his Middleweight title. Jones hasn’t competed since steamrolling Ciryl Gane for UFC’s vacant Heavyweight title in March (watch it). Again, nothing is confirmed … but UFC’s plans have Jones defending his strap when the promotion returns to New York City in November.