© Gary A. Vasquez/Imagn
While the UFC is certainly not in danger of going under anytime soon, it does feel as if the world’s foremost MMA promotion has lost a bit of steam in recent years. Constantly changing champions, rampant injuries and fight scheduling issues have put the company under the spotlight lately. But there’s one fight that fans unanimously seem to agree that they want to see.
Jon Jones is the reigning UFC heavyweight champion. He is 30-1-1 in his MMA career, and his lone loss came via disqualification in a fight he was dominating early on in his UFC career. On the other side of the equation, were have former UFC heavyweight champ Francis Ngannou. Ngannou is 18-3, including seven consecutive victories, six of which came via knockout or TKO. He left the company on top, but is still open to one day squaring off with Jones.
It’s not likely to happen, however. And Ngannou says that UFC president Dana White is the biggest reason why.
“If you can get past Dana White, it could happen, [but] that’s a massive obstacle,” Ngannou told Sportsbook Review about a fight with Jones. “But personally, I don’t care. I’m doing well. I’m doing my stuff at my pace. I don’t care. That won’t change my sleep for me.
“Finishing my career without fighting Jon Jones would be OK. I have tried to fight Jon Jones for four years since I fought Jairzinho Rozenstruik back in 2020. I’ve been trying to fight Jon Jones and then they were holding it out like a trap until the moment that I was about to leave and then they said, ‘OK, here’s the Jon Jones fight.’ But it was bait. I felt they were very tricky.”
So, how does Jones feel about the whole thing? The 37-year-old said that he wanted to fight Ngannou when he made his move up to heavyweight. He claims that Ngannou opted out. But in the same interview, Jones admitted to fearing Ngannou.
“I’m not going to lie though, knowing that I was fighting Ciryl Gane instead of Francis was kind of nice,” he said. “Francis is a scary joker.”
Sadly, we’ll likely never get to see Jones and Ngannou square up, and it appears neither way is sure who to blame.