UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones has floated the idea that he could relinquish his heavyweight title if he beats Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 on Saturday night and then go on to fight light-heavyweight champion Alex Pereira for the ‘BMF’ title instead.
“It’d be cool to fight over the heavyweight championship but I would also willingly give up the heavyweight championship,” Jones told SportsNet. “I walked away from the light heavyweight championship. I’d love to walk away from this one as well on top, on [my] own terms, good head on your shoulders, making lots of money. I love the position that I’m in right now.
“Fighting Pereira for the ‘BMF’ belt, that would be cool. We both have two belts in two weight classes and the night we fought we’d both be fighting for our third belt, which would be the ‘BMF.’ How cool would that be?”
The idea of Jones being interested in another fight beyond his current one against Miocic will be good news for fans given that the star has repeatedly hinted that he might retire after this weekend’s showdown.
It would also give the 37-year-old the opportunity to step aside and let interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall claim the undisputed title in order to stop the top end of the division being in limbo.
That being said, Jones questions whether Aspinall should even have been given the interim belt to begin with.
“The interim championship shouldn’t have been there in the first place. The only reason why there was an interim championship fight was because I got hurt and they needed to keep the importance of that Madison Square Garden event. But Sergei [Pavlovich] and Aspinall shouldn’t have been fighting for an interim title in the first place.
“They should have just been a replacement fight. A main event fight. I think making it an interim [title] fight was premature. Now you have a bunch of confused people.
“When you have a dominant champion that’s been around as long as I have, there was no reason to put an interim championship belt out there. That’s the repercussion of Madison Square Garden last year.”
One potential spanner in the works with regards to Jones hopes for a ‘BMF’ title clash is that Max Holloway remains the current holder of the belt despite his KO loss to featherweight champion Ilia Topuria recently as that title wasn’t on the line that night.
And of course there’s also the small matter of Jones having to actually beat former heavyweight champ Miocic on Saturday night too before we can really get a sense of what might come next for Jones.
