Newly reinstated UFC fighter Jon Jones is considering ‘big fights’ inside the boxing ring. Who really thought Conor McGregor was going to box Floyd Mayweather last year? No one thought the Irishman had a chance in hell at luring Floyd out of retirement. And not many gave McGregor a chance at beating him. Grant it, […]
Newly reinstated UFC fighter Jon Jones is considering ‘big fights’ inside the boxing ring.
Who really thought Conor McGregor was going to box Floyd Mayweather last year? No one thought the Irishman had a chance in hell at luring Floyd out of retirement. And not many gave McGregor a chance at beating him.
Grant it, Conor didn’t shock the world on that night, but he did do something previously thought off limits. He successfully co-promoted a fight between MMA’s biggest star (himself) and the best boxer in the modern era (Mayweather).
So when “Bones” Jones says he wants to fight the best the Sweet Science has to offer, its really not that far fetched.
“Right now my mindset is more about making money, even those big fights,” Jones told RT Sports. “You know, I watched Conor McGregor fight Floyd Mayweather, and it was high risk, high reward. There’s a saying, ‘scared money don’t make money’. I gotta be brave when I get back in the game and start challenging guys that I could possibly lose to because that’s what people want to see.”
Whatever combat sport Jones decides to pursue it would seem he has his heart set on fighting at heavyweight. Both Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder are big men. Jones has also been rumored in a potential Brock Lesnar superfight.
“They want to see Jones versus Velasquez, they want to see Jones versus Ngannou, that’s what people want to see, and that’s where my mindset is,” Jones said. “Jones versus Anthony Joshua, or Deontay Wilder, you know, that’s what people want to see.”
While the boxing experiment worked out well for McGregor, its unlikely Jones will follow suit. With a number of intriguing heavyweight match-ups for “Bones” in the UFC, there’s just not a need for Jones to take up an entirely new sport at 31 years old.
Saturday night, UFC 183 went down from Las Vegas and featured a main event between a legend and a cult hero. I am, of course, talking about the bout between Anderson Silva and Nick Diaz. The fight was heavily advertised by the return of the Anderson Silva, and it was clear this was a showcase […]
Saturday night, UFC 183 went down from Las Vegas and featured a main event between a legend and a cult hero. I am, of course, talking about the bout between Anderson Silva and Nick Diaz. The fight was heavily advertised by the return of the Anderson Silva, and it was clear this was a showcase […]
What is an MMA superfight? Is it one that crosses promotional barriers, like Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva? Is it one that involves champions defying weight classes, as BJ Penn and Georges St-Pierre once did? Is it one that spans generations, like Matt Hughes vs. Royce Gracie? Is it one that captures the imaginations of […]
What is an MMA superfight? Is it one that crosses promotional barriers, like Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva? Is it one that involves champions defying weight classes, as BJ Penn and Georges St-Pierre once did? Is it one that spans generations, like Matt Hughes vs. Royce Gracie? Is it one that captures the imaginations of […]
The bad boy is back, baby. The UFC announced this evening that welterweight star Nick Diaz has signed a three-fight contract extension, and will tentatively return to action in early 2015, against an opponent to be named later. (Probably not Joe Riggs.)
“I’ve been doing a whole lot of not getting punched around-type stuff,” Diaz said Thursday afternoon at UFC headquarters. “I’ve been staying in shape pretty good, doing a lot of running. It’s been a good experience having this much time off.”
The target for Diaz and the UFC is to get him back in the cage early next year, but the confident 30-year-old fighter said he’d be ready to fight tomorrow.
“Next year I guess, whatever though. I can fight tomorrow; tonight,” he said. “You have to do what you have to do. … [I came today] to sort things out with Dana White and Lorenzo [Fertitta].
The bad boy is back, baby. The UFC announced this evening that welterweight star Nick Diaz has signed a three-fight contract extension, and will tentatively return to action in early 2015, against an opponent to be named later. (Probably not Joe Riggs.)
“I’ve been doing a whole lot of not getting punched around-type stuff,” Diaz said Thursday afternoon at UFC headquarters. “I’ve been staying in shape pretty good, doing a lot of running. It’s been a good experience having this much time off.”
The target for Diaz and the UFC is to get him back in the cage early next year, but the confident 30-year-old fighter said he’d be ready to fight tomorrow.
“Next year I guess, whatever though. I can fight tomorrow; tonight,” he said. “You have to do what you have to do. … [I came today] to sort things out with Dana White and Lorenzo [Fertitta].
“It was hard times for a little bit, but people act like I’ve been doing nothing. I’ve been getting some things done. Just because I’m not getting punched around every day doesn’t mean I’m not focused on what I’m doing. Now, here we are.”
Now that Diaz is back, the obvious question is who he might face in his first fight. Diaz said he wants to fight anyone that will get him to a title shot, or somebody that will help put on a memorable show for the fans.
The first name that came up was UFC legend and former middleweight champ Anderson Silva, who has been linked to a Diaz super fight for months now. It just so happens that “The Spider” will be back about the same time Diaz is looking to return.
“I’d like to fight for the title,” Diaz said. “I think that would be a big deal and worth fighting for. I want fights that will lead to a title fight. Whoever is in line and whoever has the title, that’s who I’m going to be fighting.
“I’d be interested in fighting [Anderson Silva] and anything that’s going to do well,” he continued. “As far as Anderson Silva, I think that would be a great fight for people to see because he has my type of style.”
P.S.:
Oh my God. Oh my God oh my God oh my God. Stay tuned.
Johny Hendricks has not fought since narrowly defeating Robbie Lawler to earn the welterweight title back at UFC 171. Chris Weidman has defended his middleweight title all of two times, via a broken leg TKO of Anderson Silva and a recent UD win over Lyoto Machida. That neither man has even come close to cleaning out their division has not deterred certain members of the MMA media, however, from proposing the idea of a “superfight” between the two at every possible opportunity.
To his credit, Dana White has rightfully shot down the notion of a Hendricks-Weidman superfight, stating on Inside MMA that “[Hendricks is] in a very nasty division packed with talent from No. 1 to No. 13. You have a lot of housework to do before you clean out the division and talk about Chris Weidman.”
I don’t even think that I’d entertain that. Not that he’s not good or anything like that, but it just doesn’t make any sense to talk about it now. [Hendricks] hasn’t defended his belt yet, and I have more people to fight in my weight class. On top of that, I would never call out a guy who’s smaller than me. I’m a lot bigger than him, I think. I know he walks around heavy but I’d feel like I’d have a huge advantage in that fight, so I’m not calling him out.
And thank science for that. Now if only we can finish this interview without entertaining another ridiculously premature superfight question…
(Horrendous photoshop or future UFC poster? The answer may surprise you…)
Johny Hendricks has not fought since narrowly defeating Robbie Lawler to earn the welterweight title back at UFC 171. Chris Weidman has defended his middleweight title all of two times, via a broken leg TKO of Anderson Silva and a recent UD win over Lyoto Machida. That neither man has even come close to cleaning out their division has not deterred certain members of the MMA media, however, from proposing the idea of a “superfight” between the two at every possible opportunity.
To his credit, Dana White has rightfully shot down the notion of a Hendricks-Weidman superfight, stating on Inside MMA that ”[Hendricks is] in a very nasty division packed with talent from No. 1 to No. 13. You have a lot of housework to do before you clean out the division and talk about Chris Weidman.”
I don’t even think that I’d entertain that. Not that he’s not good or anything like that, but it just doesn’t make any sense to talk about it now. [Hendricks] hasn’t defended his belt yet, and I have more people to fight in my weight class. On top of that, I would never call out a guy who’s smaller than me. I’m a lot bigger than him, I think. I know he walks around heavy but I’d feel like I’d have a huge advantage in that fight, so I’m not calling him out.
And thank science for that. Now if only we can finish this interview without entertaining another ridiculously premature superfight question…
Jon Jones is different. He’s taller than me, he’s bigger than me, so that’s a different story. That would be more of a test than Johny Hendricks.
God damn it.
Look, MMA media, I know that you are content to recycle the same five or so base-level questions during these interviews (“How’s your camp going? Who would you like to fight next? How would you rate your performance? What’s your perfect Sunday like?”) until the end of time, but enough with these superfight questions already. If Jon Jones vs. Anderson Silva taught us anything, it’s that the only matchups good enough to actually warrant the “superfight” moniker are never going to happen, whether due to contract issues, scheduling conflicts, or simply because one fighter doesn’t see the merit in moving up or down in weight for a non-title fight with few actual stakes on the line.
And not only that, but repeatedly forcing a superfight narrative where none such exists is pretty much the closest thing you can do to placing a curse on one of the fighters being discussed. You’re all but asking one of them to lose their next fight. It happened with Anderson, it happened with Fedor, etc. It’s the TUF coaches rule of excessive fight hype: For every word spoken about a potential juggernaut MMA fight, the likelihood that one of the two fighters will go down with an injury increases 10%. You don’t actually think that Anthony Pettis and Gilbert Melendez are going to thrown down at the end of TUF 20, do you? Bad Tater! Bad! (*hits you with stick*)
So please, MMA media, let’s wait until our current UFC champions at least get a few title defenses under their belt before we call for a superfight. Or better yet, let’s wait until our champions can string together two straight defenses without having to undergo a surgery that benches them for the majority of a year. I know, cautious optimism…
(“No scared, homie. Trust me — no scared.” / Photo via MMAFighting)
On Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, Anderson Silva‘s manager Ed Soares stated that the former UFC middleweight king is looking to return to competition in early 2015, and Nick Diaz is one of the opponents that Soares has in mind for his next opponent.
“Nick Diaz has said he’s wanted to fight him before,” Soares explained. “You could argue that Nick Diaz and Anderson probably have some of the best boxing in MMA, so we’ll see what happens.”
Due to an existing CagePotato Ban, we decided not to pass along Soares’s statement initially. But the idea is starting to gain some traction. During yesterday’s installment of UFC Tonight, Ariel Helwani reported that Diaz would be willing to come out of retirement to fight Silva, “if the money was right”:
According to Helwani, Diaz said that a bout against Silva is a fight he’s wanted for a long time, and that he considered such a matchup as potentially one of the biggest fights in MMA history.
(“No scared, homie. Trust me — no scared.” / Photo via MMAFighting)
On Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, Anderson Silva‘s manager Ed Soares stated that the former UFC middleweight king is looking to return to competition in early 2015, and Nick Diaz is one of the opponents that Soares has in mind for his next opponent.
“Nick Diaz has said he’s wanted to fight him before,” Soares explained. “You could argue that Nick Diaz and Anderson probably have some of the best boxing in MMA, so we’ll see what happens.”
Due to an existing CagePotato Ban, we decided not to pass along Soares’s statement initially. But the idea is starting to gain some traction. During yesterday’s installment of UFC Tonight, Ariel Helwani reported that Diaz would be willing to come out of retirement to fight Silva, “if the money was right”:
According to Helwani, Diaz said that a bout against Silva is a fight he’s wanted for a long time, and that he considered such a matchup as potentially one of the biggest fights in MMA history.
You can’t argue with that. Two enigmatic superstars fighting in a gangsterweight attraction would actually give MMA fans something to get excited about. And of course, that’s why it’ll never happen — because the MMA Gods hate us and want us to be miserable.
Still, it’s interesting to see Diaz’s ridiculous “I’ll only come back for a title shot” stance begin to thaw a bit. Apparently, he’ll also come back for a non-title fight if it’s against a beloved superstar and an assload of money’s on the line. That’s progress.
