Jon Jones has gone from reportedly targeting a clash with a former UFC heavyweight champion to talking trash about a fighter who weighed in at 183lbs for his last outing.
Jones clearly sees the potential pay-per-view success in a fight with the newly crowned UFC interim middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, who has made no secret of his ultimate goal of sharing the Octagon with ‘Bones.’
Adesanya solidified his status as a legitimate UFC superstar with Saturday’s victory over Kelvin Gastelum in the co-main event of UFC 236 and he didn’t want to talk about Jones in the wake of his biggest victory to date.
“This is about me. None of that. This is about me and Kelvin. I’ll address that another time,” Adesanya said.
While Adesanya was busy celebrating in Atlanta, Jones was rushing out a Twitter tirade that has since been deleted.
Each of the above tweets from the reigning UFC light heavyweight champion, who will defend his 205lbs title against Thiago Santos in July after a rumoured meeting with Stipe Miocic fell apart, is no longer on Jones’ Twitter feed.
Adesanya, meanwhile, has decided that it is now time to address Jones’ comments in depth and ‘The Last Stylebender’ laid into Jones in no uncertain terms.
“Jon Jones, he literally just reminds me of what I’ve hated most in life, and that’s bullies,” Adesanya said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show, as transcribed by MMA Junkie. “I’ve had them through high school, coming up. Literally he’s a jock, he’s a cock, and he’s a (expletive).
“He’s picking the right time. He’s a smart boy. He knows I’m a challenge. Jon Jones likes to look for challenges because there’s a reason. He’s started all this. He’s the one that came out openly and called me out and said, ‘I’d like to fight Israel Adesanya.’
“He knows I’m a threat. But guess what, I’ve said this for so long: If you want to beat me, do it yesterday. Every (expletive) fight I get better. I get better every fight. So if he wants to try to take me out early on when he knows I’m only a year in the UFC, and I’m still learning.”
