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Israel Adesanya and Jon Jones have been going back and forth for a while now but a match up between the pair looked highly unlikely until recently. UFC knows bad blood sells and it believes in giving fighters who have a beef between themselves the opportunity to settle it inside the Octagon.
UFC President Dana White recently acknowledged the possibility of booking a fight between the champions sometime in the future given how badly the pair claim to want to fight each other.
Both Jones and Adesanya however, have different challenges at hand currently. Jones is set to defend his light heavyweight title against undefeated challenger Dominick Reyes in the main event of UFC 247 next weekend while middleweight champion Adesanya locks horns against Yoel Romero in the main event of UFC 248 on 7th March.
In a recent interaction with Jim Rome, White surprisingly claimed that Adesanya's fight against Romero doesn't make sense for the champion and it isn't a smart move to call out Romero because he is genuinely one of the most scary fighters on the planet (Darren Till will testify).
“Adesanya’s going into a fight right now that makes no sense. He called out Yoel Romero, who he does not have to fight. Every guy who’s fought him will tell you — every time they hit Yoel Romero, it hurt them. From world champions to top three guys in the world will tell you this about Romero. Adesanya calls him out and says ‘I feel like this is one of the baddest dudes in the world and my legacy will not be complete without fighting this guy first.’”
White also revealed that if Adesanya manages to make it past Romero, next up will be Paulo Costa and if New Zealand born Nigerian manages to keep his undefeated status intact post that fight, the promotion will have no other option but to book a super fight between Jones and Adesanya at light heavyweight.
“If he gets through [Romero] then gets through Paulo Costa, then he’s got Jon Jones out there, too, which is a very interesting fun fight that probably shouldn’t happen but I’ll probably let it [happen] if they want to."
