Anderson: Jones Likes To Beat Up Middleweights

Esther Lin

Current Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight king, Jon Jones, is currently embroiled in a bitter back-and-forth Twitter war with current Middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya.

While it’s a fight that is unlikely to be made anytime soon, it is still intriguing to think about the possibilities of these two great combatants getting it on inside the Octagon in the future. Corey Anderson, meanwhile, thinks “Bones” just likes to pick on the smaller fighters at 185 pounds.

“He likes beating up middleweights. He don’t want to fight nobody at 205. All the 205 pounders coming up now are actually threats. But he’s going to go and fight smaller guys, these young guys who aren’t even in the 205 division,” said Corey during an interview with MMA Fighting.

“Anthony Smith, “Marreta,” who are from 85 making him look great.”

Jon’s last two title defenses did, in fact, come against Anthony Smith and Thiago Santos, who made the move up from Middleweight to Light Heavyweight. That said, the two men did their part to earn the championship bouts, as Smith scored three consecutive stoppage victories before facing Jon. Thiago, meanwhile, did the same after making the jump up.

Still, Anderson doesn’t feel Smith and Santos had done enough to even be in a fight agaisnt one of the greatest champions ever.

“But when you put it on paper, they shouldn’t have been in the contest, anyway. I mean look at who they lost to at 85.”

In Jon’s defense, he has already pretty much taken out all the legends and top contenders at Light Heavyweight, some more than once. That said, there are a couple rising contenders still left in the division, Anderson included, who have competed at Light Heavyweight for most of their careers waiting to get a crack at “Bones” before he potentially makes a move up to Heavyweight.

Before “Beastin’ 25/8” can secure a championship bout with Jones, he will first have to get through Johnny Walker at the upcoming UFC 244 pay-per-view (PPV) event on Nov. 2, 2019 inside Madison Square Garden in New York City.