The wait for Jon Jones to return to action may be sooner than later.
On Wednesday, UFC CEO Dana White revealed his expected timeline for Jones to return to action and defend his heavyweight title after a lopsided win over Stipe Miocic this past November. While Jones hasn’t fully committed to any fight since then, White is confident that he’ll get a deal done to put him in the octagon against interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall in a title unification bout.
“The plan is to fight Jon this summer,” White told The Jim Rome Show. “Obviously, when, where and all that stuff is being determined. My goal this year is to make that fight [with] Aspinall.”
A potential wrinkle to those plans could come this weekend when Alex Pereira defends his light heavyweight title against Magomed Ankalaev in the UFC 313 main event.
A win would serve as Pereira’s fourth straight title defense and there wouldn’t be a lot of new challenges left for him at 205 pounds.
In fact, Pereira has already teased a potential move to heavyweight, but White says he’s actually behind hitting the pause button the Brazilian changing divisions again after conquering middleweight and light heavyweight.
“The other thing about Pereira that everybody loves is, this guy wants to go up to heavyweight and fight at heavyweight, too,” White said. “I’m the one that’s actually holding him back on that.”
Perhaps the biggest roadblock to Pereira moving up to heavyweight is White’s determination to book Jones against Aspinall before anything else.
White vows that’s the fight he wants to make most right now but assuming Jones battles Aspinall in 2025, he won’t discount the possibility that Pereira could then position himself for a massive showdown in his heavyweight debut.
“He wants to [fight Jon Jones],” White said about Pereira. “Let’s see how this fight plays out, if he wins, how he wins, all that kind of stuff.
“I think that the fight that everybody wants to see right now is Jones and Aspinall and then there’s no doubt that Pereira could fight the winner.”
