Plus, I don’t think Jones is gaining literally anything with ANOTHER title win the the light heavyweight. He has already proven everything he can there.
As a heavyweight I don’t think he has proven much up until now, and he needs the Aspinall win at least to ve considered a big heavyweight champ. I don’t consider him one atm.
I mean he had 2-3 fights in this division aganist not super impressive opponents.
@Bavin trying to defend Jon Jones on OA 
It’s entertainment first and foremost. No entertainment element, no competition at all. There are plenty of sporting competitions that are aerious competitions but don’t make money because they aren’t broadly entertaining.
Pereira is probably the most popular fighter in the sport right now and he viciously knocks people out. You genuinely believe nobody would want to watch Pereira v Jones?
Of course Aspinall Jones is a more interesting matchup purely from a sporting perspective, but most fans don’t do a lot of in-depth matchup analysis. What fans will see is a knockout artist against the GOAT of the sport with the added element of Pereira gunning for a 3rd belt and Jones putting his undefeated record on the line against a guy who might catch him.
The issue of killing cash cows isn’t a major one because both Pereira and Jones only have a few more fights left in the tank due to their age and Pereira should avoid Ankalaev for as long as possible but can’t for much longer.
I think your personal views are heavily influencing what you think is most exciting for the wider fanbase.
Pereira v Jones would be at heavyweight, not light heavyweight. I highly doubt Jones undoes a couple years of recomposition work to make the move to heavyweight just to go back down.
The heavyweight division is pretty thin anyway, there’s maybe 3 or 4 good guys now and Jones beat 2 of them. The rest are mostly sloppy brawlers or questionable athletes or both. He’s already shown enough to make it pretty clear he runs through any and every man on the planet if he had to.
As shit as Stipe looked tonight, Jones showed how absolutely elite he is; high-level striking, wrestling, grappling, ground and pound, the adjustments and the fluidity of it all. Throw that in with the perfect MMA body and an elite mentality and we can all see why he is the greatest fighter ever and it’s honestly not even close.
or what?
that’s the problem.
Maybe but we’re seeing americans chant for Aspinall at a Jon Jones press conference, thats fucking insane. The entire build up from journalists and the UFC community has been dominated by discussion about a potential Aspinall fight.
The Peirira fight will still be there, he is not going anywhere. It just dosnt make sense to vacate the HW belt to fight a guy he could make a fight with later anyway.
It’s no surprise that MMA’s most famous routine drug cheat preferred a fight with old retired Stipe over an actual challenge.
He doesn’t want to fight the true live dogs at heavyweight. Didn’t want Ngannou, doesn’t want Aspinall.
It’s so transparent mate
Ohh, did’t realise that.
I don’t follow the sport that much, but in that case I think it would make just as little sense if even less. I doubt Pereira challenges him after transitioning into HW. I seriously doubt he’s anywhere near a serious and dangerous opponent as Aspinall in this division. You never know, but…
That would be a pretty underwhelming title fight, as far as I can tell. I really hope Aspinall gets the fight, although I see Jones is pushing pretty heavily towards Pereira.
Jones vs Stipe would have been interesting 5 years ago. The last time we saw Atipe, he got flattened by Ngannou.
Jones needs to leave the UFC and let the Saudi’s line up the Ngannou fight. Nothing else matters.
Jones would embarrass Aspinal.
I actually think he is more interesting as a matchup. Aspinall is not elite in any area of his game and relies more on being well-rounded and quick for the weight class. Pereira offers genuine world-class striking.
Idk, I haven’t seen that much of both really, I’m just sceptic about Pereira making the transition into this division as good as Jones did. I don’t think you can take it for granted with every guy that makes that step. I’d rather see a somewhat proven (probably the most dangerous one atm) actual heavyweight against him.
Btw, when we’re on that, you can skip to the last minute od the vid. Aspinall looks pretty happy after meeting Dana, seems Dana is going to push for this fight after all.
Yeah all the noise I’m hearing is that Dana is pushing for the Jones v Aspinall fight and not Pereira.
We all know Dana talks so much shit lol he also said this today:
“If they both want it bad enough and they’re both f*cking hounding me or something, maybe I would do it,”
“But again if they go crazy on me and they want to do, what am I going to do? They’re grown ass men and I’m sure the fans want to see it, I’m sure you want to see it, I guess we’ll talk about it.”
That’s very true. He also said a 42yr old Stipe was a good challenge for Jon Jones 
Really insanely high level fight between Umar and Merab. Think Umar has the talent but Merab is sheer force of will he’s so relentless.
Merab has a crazy gas tank. Anyone who has been in there before knows how hard it is to do anything, let alone for 25 straight minutes.
Love seeing wrestlers get matched up, a bit gutted that we aren’t getting to see Islam v Tsarukyan. Their last fight was excellent and both have grown a lot since then.
That was toooo easy for Islam.
Such a shame we didn’t get the Arman fight think it was gonna be a banger.
This should be a fun event