Although it seems like Israel Adesanya and Jon Jones have buried the hatchet – not least due to the eighty-pound gulf between their weight divisions – “The Last Stylebender” insists that story is “not over.”
Adesanya recently appeared on The MMA Hour to discuss his old rivalry with former light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and where their beef came from in the first place.
Israel Adesanya Insists Jon Jones Rivalry Is “Not Over”
“It’s not at odds. I’ve never had a conversation with this guy ever, so how am I going to have a friendship, like a ‘buddy-dom’ with someone I’ve never talked to? Yeah, we’ve beefed, I don’t like him, he doesn’t like me, but we respect each other’s skills and I was a fan before I was even in the UFC.
He was the youngest UFC champion, did great things, I followed his career, then he called me out and I was like, ‘The f***? What did I do to you?’ Same thing, I went back at him, we went back for a little bit on Twitter, which was fun, but the story’s not over.”
The fight, however, may never come to fruition. Jones is sitting atop the heavyweight division, and may well retire before Israel Adesanya gets the chance to face him.
The fight appeared most likely a few years ago when Adesanya was tearing through the middleweight division and looked like he was coming for Jon Jones’ light heavyweight title.
A move to light heavyweight is still on the cards for Adesanya, who acknowledges that the fight may end up being a fan’s dream matchup that simply never comes to fruition.
“Anderson Silva-GSP? Jon Jones-Anderson Silva? Sometimes, we don’t always get what we want, but those fights I felt like would have been some of the biggest fights in history.
We don’t always get what we want, but we get what we get. Right now, where we’re at, it’s just another one of those ones like me and Alex [Pereira]. It’s like, ugh, we’re over. I think you guys are more hard about it than we are. [Jones and I] are kind of just like, ‘OK.’”
Speaking of Jones, Adesanya also weighed in on another major rival of his old enemy. Jones has engaged in a war of words with heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury of late, and “The Last Stylebender” is backing Fury to deliver the skills.
“If anyone can do it, [Fury] can. I even felt like, ‘Jump in the cage.’ Look, all this s*** about, ‘You’ve got to come to boxing, you’ve got to come to boxing.’
I don’t know why everyone does that. Even [Tony] Bellew was like, ‘Don’t f*** around with these MMA guys. We all know what fighting is.’
Even as a kickboxer, I wouldn’t have just jumped into the UFC without learning other martial arts to learn how to counteract or beat them at their own game, so let’s not be silly here.”
