Ever since Jon Jones rose victorious over Stipe Miocic at UFC 309, the friction has been getting stronger between the heavyweight champion and Alex Pereira. While the majority of the fighting community wants to witness the battle between Jones and Tom Aspinall, Pereira vs. Jones isn’t completely out of the question. And now, the man with the hands of stone has come up with a push for Dana White.
Ahead of his 4th consecutive light heavyweight title defense against Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313, ‘Poatan’ revealed, “There is an interest. There is a potential. Even Jon Jone expressed himself. We wanted to do this. We want! Now, it’s up to the UFC to make it happen.” Well, ‘Bones’ has indeed hinted that he wanted a fight against the Brazilian champion. He sidelined the UFC interim heavyweight champion to take on a fight against Pereira, and was even ready to vacate his heavyweight throne to make the fight happen.
At the UFC 309 post-fight press conference, Jones declared that he was actually worried about fighting Pereira. That was what he wanted to do, and he made his intentions pretty clear. And during his appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show, 2 weeks ago, the light heavyweight champion said that he was a champion, and he wanted to fight a champion. He said, “Let’s make the fight with Jon Jones. This is the fight I want at heavyweight.”
Even though both the fighters had repeatedly talked about taking up the fight, Dana White wasn’t so sure about it. No doubt, the UFC head honcho was a fan of the two. But he didn’t seem to believe that they belonged in the MMA cage together. Let’s see what the UFC CEO had to say about Jones vs. Pereira.
Dana White opens up on Jon Jones vs. Alex Pereira super-fight
After Jon Jones won his heavyweight title defense with a spectacular spinning back kick, White knew that he would be pretty dangerous for Alex Pereira. During the post-fight press conference, the UFC boss said, “You know what tonight told me? There’s no f—— way I make the Pereira fight. Jon’s too big. Did you see how he took Stipe down in that first round? I like Alex Pereira. I like him personally. It just doesn’t make sense to make that fight.”
But there was still a bit of a chance for Jones and Pereira to fight against each other. White agreed that he would let them do it if they kept pestering him. However, he was quite skeptical about Pereira’s decision. He asked the MMA realm to take a look at the Brazilian’s age and what he has been doing in the fighting realm. White couldn’t understand the reason behind his move towards the heavyweight division to fight someone who was much larger than him. On top of that, Jones posed the threat of wrestling.
The UFC head honcho said, “I want Pereira to stay where he is and do what he does and run the street. But again, if they go crazy on me and they want to do, what am I going to do? They’re grown a– men and I’m sure the fans want to see it. I’m sure you want to see it. I guess we’ll talk about it.” With Pereira continuing to push White’s buttons, we might just get to see the war that we have been anticipating for so long.
Do you wish to see the battle between Jones and Pereira sometime in the future? Who do you think would win if the fight actually materialized? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.
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