As things stand Jon Jones Vs Glover Teixeira is still going ahead, but you’ll have to wait a little longer to see it as it’s now no longer taking place in February of 2014 as was previously announced.
UFC president Dana White admitted earlier today that it was a mistake that the fight was first confirmed as the headliner for UFC 169 on Superbowl weekend and that circumstances have now lead to the light-heavyweight title clash being pushed back until at least March of next year.
“Our people f*cked up and put that out when they shouldn’t have put that out, because that was never, ever even a done deal,” White told the MMAfighting.com website. “Our P.R. team jumped the gun on that one.”
Interestingly, he says the reason for the delay is not down to an injury or any reluctance from either fighter to take the fight on it’s original date, but he stops short of naming one specific reason for why it won’t go ahead, simply stating that, “the timing didn’t work out.”
It’s unfortunate that it’s worked out this way as the UFC always likes to stack their Superbowl weekend show and Jones Vs Teixeira would have been the perfect fight to lead a high-profile show like that.
Instead, only a heavyweight ‘loser leaves town’ encounter between Alistair Overeem and Frank Mir remains slated for the February 1st show which in a break from routine will take place in New Jersey rather than Las Vegas.
One plan that does still appear to be in place though is to have Jones’ most recent challenger, Alexander Gustafsson, fight on a card in Europe on a date as close as possible to the Jones Vs Teixeira encounter with a rematch between the two believed to be “one hundred percent” guaranteed according to White if both emerge victorious.
