Whether a superfight between Jon Jones and Israel Adesanya was ever truly in the cards for the UFC middleweight champion, the idea of the bout gained some decent traction with fans and pundits largely stemming from a series of call-outs issued by Adesanya to the then light heavyweight champ back in 2019—surrounding the run up to the ‘Last Stylebender’’s UFC 243 title fight against Robert Whittaker.
“I like challenges. [Jones] is the GOAT right now, right? I’ve already killed on GOAT, I’m hunting the next,” Adesanya told reporters, speaking of his desire to fight ‘Bones’ sometime in the future.