Israel Adesanya said he’d be willing to move up a weight class or two down the line to take on champions Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic.
And with middleweight champ Adesanya (18-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC) and light heavyweight champ Jones (25-1 MMA, 19-1 UFC) trading barbs even after Adesanya’s spectacular performance over Robert Whittaker this past weekend at UFC 243, it seems both parties are willing to throw down.
But Adesanya’s head coach, Eugene Bareman, doesn’t seem too interested in a potential fight with Jones. He says Jones needs Adesanya a lot more than Adesanya needs him.
And he’d rather see “The Last Stylebender” face heavyweight champ Miocic instead.
“Jon Jones 100 percent needs Israel,” Bareman said on Submission Radio. “Israel does not need Jon Jones at all. Israel is baiting Jon Jones at every corner, and Jon Jones just keeps biting because Jon Jones knows he needs Israel. Let’s not talk about Jon Jones. Let’s talk about Stipe. If we have to talk about this superfight, let’s talk about Stipe. Let’s talk about Israel going up. Has anybody gone up and won two titles, but skipped a division? Well, there you go. There’s a bit of history.”
The City Kickboxing head coach had a perfect night in Melbourne, Australia, with Brad Riddell making good on his UFC debut, Dan Hooker emerging as a lightweight contender, and Adesanya unifying the 185-pound title. He criticized Jones for his reluctance to move up to heavyweight.
He said Adesanya would have no hesitation to do so.
“Jon Jones so far has not been willing to go to heavyweight,” Bareman said. “He’s been reluctant to go to heavyweight. Am I correct? Well, Israel wouldn’t be reluctant to go to heavyweight. Israel would go to heavyweight and he would fight Stipe Miocic. There you go. We’ll take that fight, Jon Jones. If you don’t want to take it, you can hang around at light heavyweight. We’ll skip light heavyweight and we’ll take that fight off you. There’s some more bait there, so Jon Jones can bite on it and start doing what he does, like what these guys do. But we’ll take the fight. Don’t worry about it, Jon Jones.”
For now, Adesanya, who already said is focused on defending his title and being an active champ, has a big task ahead of him. Paulo Costa, who defeated Yoel Romero at UFC 241, sat front row to watch him win the title at UFC 243 and is Adesanya’s likely first title defense.
The two exchanged words when Adesanya walked out of the cage, and all signs are pointing at the matchup being the next middleweight title fight.
Bareman wants his star student to focus on Costa then possibly Miocic, rather than Jones.
“Let’s stop talking about Jon Jones – let’s talk about Stipe,” Bareman said. “We’ve got a bit to do. We’ve got Paulo Costa, we’ve got other things. But yeah, let’s talk about that. Let’s stop talking about Jon Jones and the big matchup. There’s bigger matchups than Jon Jones. How about a guy going up two weight divisions to claim another title?”
