UFC Light Heavyweight champ Jon Jones seems to hell bent on not giving Alexander Gustafsson a smooth ride to an inevitable rematch. The paid fought at UFC 165 last September in what was to become the ‘Fight of the Year’.
Jones narrowly walked away with a decision win. That decision has divided the MMA world as to who won. The fact it was so close and that no one has ever pushed Jones this hard has had every salivating at the potential of a rematch, everyone except Jon Jones that is.
Dana White gave an update of the negotiations to get a rematch sorted on UFC.com and he revealed that the champ doesn’t want to fight Gustafsson but rather Daniel Cormier instead, who just recently beat Dan Henderson.
“Just to clear up a couple things, people think we’re in contract negotiations with Jon Jones – we’re not. Jon Jones still has five fights left on his contract,” White said Monday afternoon to UFC.com. “So what we’re doing right now is trying to get him to sign the bout agreement for Gustafsson. He doesn’t want to fight Gustafsson. … Lorenzo and I have a meeting with Jones on Thursday to get him to sign the bout agreement, and he’s asking to fight Cormier instead.”
Alan’s Angle: This could be a very clever act of mind games from Jon Jones to frustrate the big Swede Gustafsson. As the months go on and on it is becoming more apparent in Gustafsson’s interviews that this situation is annoying. Gus wants the title, Jon Jones has it – so why would Jon Jones care if they fight again or not? He knows they’ll inevitably have to do it again but why not try get Gus to lose some steam or make him fight more people and possibly lose to someone to delay it more. Jones is in the driving seat here and is taking people for a ride.
