It’s been over two years since Jon Jones last fight, a less than convincing defence of the light-heavyweight title against Dominick Reyes, which was followed by a decision to relinquish the belt in order to start preparing for a move up to heavyweight.
It’s been a long journey since then, but with his eventual return in his new weight class expected to take place at some point this year, the now 34-year-old Jones has been speaking out about the move, suggesting that his appetite to compete at 205lbs had gone, but that he’s now hungry for success at heavyweight.
“My candle for light heavyweight blew out, it showed in my last fight, instead of being discouraged by a bad performance, I’m stoked about this new season,” Jones wrote on Twitter. “New energy. My time at LWH was over, I see that more clear today than ever
“I’ve been imagining [winning the title] for over two years now, I genuinely believe winning this heavyweight championship is in my destiny. It’s already been written. I just need to keep my nose in the dirt for now and keep working, everything else will take care of itself.”
At this stage there’s still no conformation about when exactly he will return or who it will be against, although it appears the initial thought that he’d fight current champion Francis Ngannou for the heavyweight title has been put on the backburner due to ‘The Predator’ being out for the rest of the year after undergoing knee surgery.
In the mean time it now seems likely that Jones could be immediately propelled into an interim title fight, with other leading contenders like Stipe Miocic, Ciryl Gane, Tai Tuivasa and Curtis Blaydes also likely to be under consideration too.
