Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) light heavyweight champion, Jon Jones, has been impressed with the body of work thus far from rising middleweight contender, Israel Adesanya, undefeated at 16-0 with 13 finishes.
That’s because “Bones” is one of the smart ones, already scouting “The Last Stylebender” in case the promotion is able to cobble together a Jones vs. Adesanya “super fight” at some point in late 2019, or perhaps early 2020.
Something it could never pull off when Anderson Silva was ruling the 185-pound roost, despite this guarantee.
“Jones and Silva have spoken about fighting each other for years as well, but that never came to fruition,” Adesanya told the gang at Submission Radio. “This I feel is different. So yeah, I look forward to that challenge as well.”
That challenge won’t be coming unless both Adesanya and Jones win their next fights, and perhaps the fights that follow that, as well. If “The Last Stylebender” can defeat Kelvin Gastelum for the interim middleweight strap at UFC 236, he’ll then need to unify the titles opposite Robert Whittaker later this year.
In addition, Jones must deal with power-punching light heavyweight contender, Thiago Santos, and could be tasked with turning away Dominick Reyes, assuming “The Devastator” can finish off Volkan Oezdemir this weekend in London.
Either way, at least “Bones” is smart enough to be paying attention.
“That shows you how serious they’re taking me, the smart ones, how much they know I’m a threat, how serious they’re taking me,” Adesanya said. “Like, [Jones] mentioned it on fight week of 235 or whatever, and then I went back two weeks prior on messages with Eugene when I put the question out there, how are we going to beat Jon Jones? And he kind of just laid down the rough blueprint. And I blurred a lot of it out, but yeah, we’re focusing on Gastelum.”
All in favor of Jones vs. Adesanya?
Get the latest gear
