Jon Jones has held the UFC heavyweight title for over two years now. However, he is yet to make it undisputed, happily letting the interim champ Tom Aspinall wait for his title shot. And while uncertainty still shrouds the fight, UFC veteran Chael Sonnen has spoken about another interesting matchup for Aspinall.
Sonnen has claimed that before fighting Jones, Aspinall may end up taking on Alex Pereira. The Brazilian, who has defended his light heavyweight title thrice since winning the belt in November 2023, is taking on Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313 next.
While Pereira is on a roll at the moment, Sonnen feels that things are setting up in a similar manner to how the Brazilian’s stint in the middleweight division ended. He had moved up to light heavyweight after suffering his first loss at middleweight to Israel Adesanya in April 2023.
Sonnen feels that there is a good possibility of Ankalaev beating Pereira, given his wrestling dominant style. And if that happens, it would open up, or rather force ‘Poatan’ to move up in weight and challenge for the title yet again. In a recent video on Instagram, Uncle Chael gave fans his breakdown of the entire situation.
“Your most likely way is for Ankalaev to beat him (Pereira)…. Jones will not sidestep Aspinall to fight Pereira…. The Aspinall-Pereira conversation is not only likely, it’s very likely gonna happen soon,” said Sonnen.
Despite his aspirations to fight Pereira with the heavyweight title on the line, Sonnen does not see Jones ducking Aspinall to make the fight happen. He claimed that the most likely scenario would be that the champ asks Aspinall to fight Pereira for the interim title, following which he will take on the winner.
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That way, Pereira still gets his title shot, and Jones still gets to fight the best in the world at heavyweight. That would make it a win-win situation for everyone involved. But of course, all this is dependent on Pereira’s fight this weekend against Ankalaev.
Speaking of that fight, Ankalaev would be Pereira’s toughest test yet. Poatan himself is aware of the challenge the Russian poses. However, he has claimed to possess a secret technique that will surprise his opponent.
Sonnen is not buying into Pereira’s secret technique claim
Ankalaev will put Pereira’s wrestling skills to the test inside the octagon on March 8. It’s one area that Pereira has not been able to master so far. However, the champ claims he is going to shock the world and Ankalaev, with his secret new technique on the ground.
That has left everyone intrigued. But neither Sonnen nor his Good Guy/Bad Guy show co-host Daniel Cormier are ready to bite. Sonnen even said that this is a tactic Pereira learned from Khalil Rountree.
“I feel like Pereira just grabbed the line from his former opponent and now he’s trying to give it to, ‘Oh I have a surprise for you’. Oh let me guess, you’re gonna stretch him out, or try to choke him out, I mean there’s only so many options on the ground,” said Sonnen.
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Cormier concurred. There are only so many things you can do on the ground that haven’t been done before, he stated.
Well, perhaps the surprise that Pereira is talking about is how much his ground game has improved since making the transition to MMA from kickboxing. With Glover Teixeira as his coach, the Brazilian has had a very wrestling-heavy camp in preparation. We will get to see if that would work for him or not this weekend.
