Are Jon Jones and Israel Adesanya on Collision Course to a Super-Fight?
The escalating feud could spillover into a potential super-fight. | Source: AFP/AP
- The verbal spat suggests the duo could be building up to a potential super fight.
- Jones seems to be taking his eye off the ball as he has already announced a fight with Dominick Reyes that is ‘weeks away’
- Coming days will bring more of the same, as Jones will intensify his attempts to rile up “The Last Stylebender”
Jon Jones and Israel Adesanya have been having a go at each other in the past few days. Could these exchanges point to the possibility of a super fight between the duo in 2020-21? It certainly seems so.
After Israel Adesanya’s appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience last week, Jon ‘Bones’ Jones went ahead and took a little swipe at Israel Adesanya . Jones tweeted:
Saw a video on Worldstar just now and was like wft? It was literally like Joe was talking to himself, the kid has no depth.
The tweet, along with a few more jibes that Jones took, has since been deleted. Last month, Jones had also said that he wanted to slap Adesanya for being a ‘f*cking nerd’. However, yesterday “The Last Stylebender” Adesanya finally hit back , calling Jones a ‘suburban dad’ who is ‘out of touch’ with the internet culture.
This recent back and forth comes after Jones announced on Twitter that he was just weeks away from his next fight.
Jon Jones last fought in July 2019, when he defeated Thiago Santos and extended his stunning record to 25-1. After a response from a fan, Jones went ahead and almost confirmed that he will be fighting Dominick Reyes who is unbeaten (12-0).
But the UFC Light Heavyweight champions seems to have garnered a bigger interest in the possible super-fight with Adesanya. Jones has been trying to get under Adesanya’s skin for quite some time and has succeeded in getting a reaction out of him on several occasions.
After his victory at UFC 244, Adesanya said :
I just got my middleweight title in April, and I defended it for the first time in October.
He also mentioned that he is looking to ‘clear out the middleweight’ before he goes up a division and ‘whoops Jones’ a**’.
If Jon wants to fight me now, he’s got to come down to middleweight.
Reminiscent of Canelo vs Mayweather
Adesanya seems to be in no hurry to move up a weight class to fight Jones and he has good reasons for it. This situation draws a lot of similarities to what happened between Floyd Mayweather and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in 2013. While Saul was coming up a division to fight Mayweather, his impatience got the better of him as he took the fight too early and ended up on the losing side.
It appears like Adesanya doesn’t want to make the same mistake as Canelo and is going to take his time to prepare for the fight.
Jon Jones, on the other hand, would like to force Adesanya into an early fight which will give the former a tremendous advantage. This is likely the reason why Jones has continued taunting Adesanya incessantly as he recently called him a “Pokemon Ringleader” and implied that he isn’t as good as people are making him out to be.
It is indeed very intriguing what the next few days might bring. Most certainly, we are going to see more attempts from Jones to rile up the middleweight champion. However, given Adesanya’s level-headed response, it’s highly unlikely that he’ll rush into a fight with Jon Jones. As much as Jones wants the fight to happen in 2020, it will likely be held off till 2021.
