Jon Jones has touched on the issue of moving up to heavyweight before, but in his in-depth interview with Ariel Helwani earlier this week he sounded more confident than ever that it’s only a matter of time before he steps up to the UFC’s heaviest class.
Despite a focus on strength training that’s packed muscle onto his lean frame, the 28 year-old Jones isn’t looking to move up right away upon his return to the Octagon though.
“My first priority is getting back what I lost,” Jones says in reference to the light-heavyweight title that he was stripped of following his hit-and-run incident earlier this year.
That means a rematch with current champion Daniel Cormier which Jones believes could take place in April of next year, while Jones also says he has, “unfinished business with Anthony Johnson” at 205lbs, but after that it looks like the path would be clear for a move up in weight.
“Oh yeah, that’s inevitable, that’s going down,” Jones says of a stint at heavyweight.
If he does move up he wouldn’t feel like a fish out of water as he points out that he used to wrestle every day with his older brother who was ranked No.1 in the country in high school and weighs in at a whopping 275lbs, while sparring heavyweights is also standard practice for ‘Bones’, revealing that it’s rare that he ever does so with someone who’s the same size as him or smaller.
That, together with the gains he’s experienced from pumping iron at the gym has led him to believe that he could be a force to be reckoned in that division.
“I’m totally comfortable going rounds with big guys, and now that I have the strength of a heavyweight my confidence is through the roof. I think I would be faster…I actually think I’m physically stronger than a lot of them right now, and my skills speaks for itself.”
