After successfully defending his middleweight title this past weekend, Israel Adesanya brought up the fact that he still wants to fight Jon Jones at some stage in the future, but the former light-heavyweight champion has now fired back, insinuating that ‘The Last Stylebender’ is still ducking him and would be biting off more than he could chew if they did lock horns.
“Maybe, but I’ll have to ask [head coach] Eugene [Bareman],” Adesanya said when asked if he was interested in moving up to 205lbs. “But like what I told About Anderson Silva – Anderson Silva defended this belt so many times in the middleweight division and then moved on to light heavyweights for small shows.
“I just wanted to fuck Jon Jones and I always will. Bu…I’m just going to have to talk to Eugene because even told him about Stipe Miocic and stuff. So yes, everything is open. Cheddar makes it better.”
Jones has since taken to Instagram to make it clear he’s not impressed with that reply.
“BUT what?” Jones wrote. “You’ve stepped into the ring over 100 times now and you’re still not ready!? You have a youth advantage and like four times the fighting experience. The truth is you’re already my (expletive), you love being undefeated and you’ve seen what’s happened to everyone else. It raises your stock to mention my name. (You’re) aware of this. You don’t want real confrontation with me (because) I’m not gonna just stand there and kickbox with you. I’ve been preparing for heavyweights. (Right) around now I would literally tear one of your arms off.”
For now though it still seems like Jones will focus on his move up to heavyweight, while on Saturday night the talk was that Adesanya may fight Jared Cannonier next if he can get past ex-champ Robert Whittaker at UFC 254.
