Jon Jones prepared to vacate heavyweight title in an effort to battle Alex Pereira after UFC 309

Jon Jones could or could not proceed combating past UFC 309, but when he does, the reigning heavyweight champion has declared he could be prepared to return for yet another battle towards mild heavyweight king Alex Pereira over Tom Aspinall.

Complicating Jones’ wish is the truth that Aspinall at the moment is the UFC interim heavyweight champ, a title he claimed in November 2023 with a knockout of Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 295. That door was opened solely as a result of Jones suffered a pectoral damage that compelled him to withdraw from his unique date with Stipe Miocic.

If Jones, who’s flirted with retiring after UFC 309, defeats Miocic and continues his profession past Saturday night time’s predominant occasion, many (maybe even the vast majority of) followers and pundits imagine he ought to unify the title with Aspinall, UFC CEO Dana White among them. However as far Jones is worried, these persons are merely misguided.

“Nicely, the interim championship shouldn’t have been there within the first place,” Jones stated Monday in an interview with Sportsnet’s Aaron Bronsteter. “The one cause there was an interim championship battle was as a result of I obtained damage, and so they wanted to maintain the significance of that Madison Sq. Backyard occasion (UFC 295). However Sergei and Aspinall shouldn’t have been combating for an interim title within the first place. They need to’ve simply been a substitute battle, a predominant occasion. I feel making it an interim battle was untimely, and now you’ve gotten a bunch of confused folks.”

Jones vs. Pereira for the BMF title?

When contemplating a future battle with Pereira or Aspinall, Jones views “Poatan” because the matchup that can assist his legacy extra, which is essential to him. In any case, it’s why Jones is combating Miocic, who’s extensively thought-about the best heavyweight of all time, as an alternative of Aspinall, regardless of the previous champ’s three-and-a-half-year layoff.

Pereira, who’s the identical age as Jones (37), brings much more to the desk when it comes to credentials, having claimed the UFC middleweight title by knocking out Israel Adesanya earlier than he moved as much as Jones’ outdated stomping grounds of sunshine heavyweight and profitable 4 consecutive title fights.

If it’s the standing of the heavyweight champion that has everybody up in arms about why he ought to battle Aspinall, Jones is prepared to vacate in an effort to make a Pereira showdown occur.

“It’d be cool to battle (Pereira) for the heavyweight championship, however I’d additionally willingly quit the heavyweight championship,” Jones stated. “I walked away from the sunshine heavyweight championship, and I’d like to stroll away from this one, as properly, on high, on (my) personal phrases, good head on (my) shoulders, making a lot of cash. I really like the place that I’m in proper now.”

Jones even has an concept for the UFC to think about ought to a battle with Pereira come to fruition.

“Preventing Pereira for the BMF belt, that’d be cool,” Jones stated. “We each have two belts in two weight courses. The night time we fought, we’d each be combating for our third belt, which might be the BMF. How cool would that be?”

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