If Jon Jones vs. Israel Adesanya does indeed happen, Chael Sonnen thinks it may be a non-title fight and a catchweight bout.
Jones and Adesanya have been going back-and-forth at one another and “The Last Stylebender” even said he would hunt Jones down even if he goes to heavyweight. But, the middleweight champion has also said the fight won’t happen until 2021.
For Sonnen, he believes Adesanya has the control of when the fight will take place.
“When Adesanya tells you, ‘I don’t care about the belt,’ he is telling you the truth,” Sonnen said on YouTube channel (via BJPENN.com). “And that wasn’t true for his whole life, he wanted the belt but now he’s got two of em. And he doesn’t need to do champ-champ, I’m just sharing his mindset for you. Since he’s the one taking the risk going up and taking on the bigger guy, I think that in many ways we default to his mindset. By the way, he’s got a whole lot of guys that he can fight that he can do one hell of a good amount of business with, Jon’s not in that same spot. In many ways, the power does shift to Adesanya in that.”
UFC president, Dana White also said the fight could happen but has to be under the right circumstances. For Sonnen, he believes that means the fight being a catchweight and no titles on the line.
“If Adesanya said, ‘look I’ll come meet him and we’ll do it at 200 pounds and there’s no belts on the line. I’ll go right back down to 185. Be no logjam, no holding you up. Jon, what do you say? Meet me at 200 pounds? Non-title match? We do a grudge match? What do you say?’ I do not suggest or predict for any of you that those two are going to go and fight and that this is gonna be a non-title match in some weird and goofy weight class,” Sonnen continued. “I’m just sharing with you because Dana had thrown out kind of a loose term. He said, ‘well under the right circumstances.’ I’m very curious, what would those be?”
