Israel Adesanya Still Calls For Jon Jones Fight: I’m Coming For That Ass
Well, despite his unsuccessful bid to add the UFC light heavyweight crown to current middleweight spoils, Israel Adesanya is still fixated on a potential future pairing with rival, incoming heavyweight title chaser, Jon Jones — detailing how he’s still interest in that matchup.
Headlining UFC 259 two weeks ago against defending 205-pound champion, Jan Blachowicz, Adesanya dropped his first professional defeat to the Pole, suffering a unanimous decision loss, with two fight altering takedowns in both the fourth and fifth rounds swaying the contest in the favour of the defending gold holder.
The defeat marked Adesanya’s first ever loss in professional mixed martial arts — snapping his promotional perfect run of nine consecutive wins since his debut at UFC 221 in February of 2018, with his résumé currently sitting at 20-1.
Despite the defeat, and the questioning of his sheer size for the light heavyweight division, never mind the heavyweight ranks, Adesanya told ESPN MMA reporter, Ariel Helwani recently that he’s still got sights set on Jones — who himself is expected to debut at heavyweight this summer.
“Hell no,” Adesanya said. “This is just a valley in my sport. In any movie, in any anime series, you always have the valleys and you rise up from that. This is just mine and it’s like, all right, cool, bet. I’m taking this very well, and I know exactly what I have to do to get back to my true self, so yeah, I’m doing just that. But nah, that fight’s (with Jon Jones) not dead. I’m coming for that ass.“
“This is deeper than fighting now,” Adesanya explained. “He (Jones) knows, we know, we all know what he’s like. We all know how fake he is, it’s not even gonna take long before he fu*ks his life up again if he hasn’t already and kept it low key and swept it under the rug. You had quarantine Izzy (Israel Adesanya) last time going at him and just giving facts, straight facts, so I’m just taking my time right now, doing my own thing, focusing on myself. But, he should do the same because his life could be in shambles.” (H/T MMA Junkie)
While a contender for Adesanya’s middleweight championship is expected to come from an April 10 matchup of Darren Till and Marvin Vettori, or an April 17 clash of Robert Whittaker and Kelvin Gastelum — Jones is widely expected to challenge either UFC 260 heavyweight title victor, Stipe Miocic or Francis Ngannou for divisional gold in his heavyweight bow sometime this summer.
