Jon Jones: 2014 Superfight With Anderson Silva Is Still On
Possibly the biggest upset of this decade in MMA was seeing Anderson Silva get knocked silly by Chris Weidman, so much so that it still feels alien typing it today. The long time Middleweight boss was dethroned at UFC 162, suffering the first KO of his career, and putting to bed all hopes of a super fight anytime soon. Well, Jon Jones doesn’t seem to think so. The Light-Heavyweight boss is set to face Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 165, but is obviously still very keen to fight Silva. Check out what he had to say to Fighters Only Mag:
“Watching UFC 162 (when Anderson was KO’d inside five minutes) was crazy. Just sitting there and registering something like that is mind blowing. To see a great champion and an entire legacy just end like that, it was humbling. It lets you know that it can happen to anyone. You’ve got to take everything and everyone seriously and you’ve got to respect the sport.”
“But at the same time I still believe Anderson can come back. He’s still has it and he just got caught basically. After he lost I Tweeted about my disappointment and that him losing sucked, but it was just because watching a champion lose always sucks. It’s like he’s also a member of this special league of gentlemen and when you see one of the guys get taken down it sucks. But Anderson, and any thought of a super fight, well, it’s still there.”
I’m not sure about the ‘special league of gentlemen’ that Jones speaks of, unless something is lost in translation, but his sentiments towards a potential super fight with Silva have altered in recent times. Before the Weidman fight, it was a kinda ‘will they, won’t they?’ game between Jones and Silva. Both fighters showing interest in the superfight, then quickly retracting their sentiments. Echos of Mayweather vs. Pacquaio, or the lack thereof.
“All Anderson has to do is win his next fight (Weidman rematch, UFC 168) decisively and there’s the interest right there. It’s still on, the superfight,” he says. “I’ve never really been overly anxious to face Anderson Silva though to be honest. I knew the fight could happen but I never had any desire to be the one to beat him or anything like that.”
Bones isn’t alone in believing that Silva can win a second bout with Weidman, and it is very ironic that a Matt Serra trained fighter has created the biggest ever upset in MMA; given that Serra himself shockingly beat GSP, in a fight where he was the heavy underdog.
Will history repeat itself once again, and will Silva smash Weidman the second time around? If it means that we get to see Silva vs. Jones in the new year, then I’m rooting for The Spider.
