Jon Jones  is back in action and he is taking up Stipe Miocic for their unfinished business at UFC 309. However, Tom Aspinall has been sidelined even though he and UFC fans think that he should get the title unification bout. Now ‘Bones’ is not so eager to fight ‘Honey Badger’ and has a certain Brazilian juggernaut in mind. He has already made his stance clear but what about the light-heavyweight’s wishes?

Thankfully, Alex Pereira has decided to respond to the ongoing discussions and he did so with a small yet effective message on his Instagram stories. ‘Poatan’ wrote, “Chama My brother let’s make them wait. @danawhite @jonnybones” while uploading a picture of the UFC head honcho holding the BMF belt. While others including the UFC boss want Jones to fight Aspinall, Jones thinks it is absurd for him to fight the interim champ. “Well, the interim championship shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” Jones said Monday in an interview with Sportsnet’s Aaron Bronsteter. He also pointed out that the interim championship bout was only done because of Jones’ injury.

He declared that this interim title is the reason why there are so many confusions. Instead, Jones wants to fight Pereira, who’s the same age as him (37). He even pitched doing it for the BMF belt. Pereira brings more to the table in terms of certifications, having clinched the UFC middleweight title by knocking out Israel Adesanya before he moved up to Jones’ old playing ground and winning four consecutive title fights.

Jones has kept his options open and is not thinking of retiring after UFC 309. Jones is ready for a number of possible paths he can journey on. One path is definitely hanging up his gloves and closing the UFC chapter and the other is fighting against Pereira. “Fighting Pereira for the BMF belt, that’d be cool,” Jones said to MMA Junkie. “We both have two belts in two weight classes. The night we fought, we’d both be fighting for our third belt, which would be the BMF. How cool would that be?”

Interestingly, his coach, Brandon Gibson, agrees with the HW champ. “I think that would be an incredible fight for the fans and for both of their legacy. [Alex] Pereira is a, you know, he’s going to go down as one of the greats in this sport. He’s already a two-time, two-weight class champion,” Gibson told ‘Submission Radio’ in a recent interview.

Pereira and Jones are not only of the same age but also roughly of the same physique and size. So along with this their stylistic match would also be intriguing to watch and almost like a ‘chess match’ according to the coach. But why does Jones not want to fight Tom Aspinall?

Jon Jones gives reason why he does not want to fight Tom Aspinall

Tom Aspinall has proved himself by winning the interim heavyweight champion title against Sergei Pavlovich and expected his due for the title unification. It is also an unsaid rule in in combat sports that the ‘undisputed’ champ faces the interim champ first thing after coming back. So naturally fans expected the same.

Instead, ‘Bones’ has cleared that fact that he will not fight Aspinall, and stated that the Brit ‘hasn’t proven anything’. Instead chosen to fight a 42-year-old who last got inside the octagon three years ago. On top of that if Jones retired after the Miocic fight then it would have been a different story. But now that he wants to fight Pereira, it is a straight up disregard for ‘Honey Badger’.

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Additionally, Jones’ claim that Aspinall has not proved himself is also not right since the latter has destroyed every opponent and has a record of 15-3.  So is Jones scared to face the interim champ? What are your thoughts? Share it in the comments section below.