UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones will probably move up to the UFC's Heavyweight division after he cleans out the Light Heavyweight division says coach Greg Jackson on The MMA Hour.
Jon Jones coach Greg Jackson was a guest on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, you can watch the full video below, and he answered the question whether Jon Jones should move up to Heavyweight:
Yeah, I'm OK with whatever they want to do. If he wants to do that, then I'll help him out. I've always said that it's up to fighters and the management. Then it's my job to figure out how we're going to do that. If that's the parameters they want to give, that's what I do. And I actually enjoy that. Anything different is good.
He also talks about the challenges that Jon Jones still has to face at Light Heavyweight:
It doesn't matter to me.
It's whatever the UFC says. As long as we have enough time to prepare, we're going to have to fight them all anyway. We're going to have to fight Machida again, we're going to have to fight Gustafsson, whoever else they put in front of us. It's just a matter of who's next. But I never want to be like, 'Avoid this guy' or 'fight this guy.' When you're the champion, you really have to take on. That's part of what being champion is; whoever they say you have to fight, you have to fight. People might not think that makes sense because we said we don't want to take a new fight on short notice. That's a whole different animal. It's not that we were avoiding the opponent, we were avoiding the situation. We wanted to make sure we were well-prepared. This is a world title in a sport that I think is the best in the world by far, and I want to take that seriously.
It's whatever the UFC says. As long as we have enough time to prepare, we're going to have to fight them all anyway. We're going to have to fight Machida again, we're going to have to fight Gustafsson, whoever else they put in front of us. It's just a matter of who's next. But I never want to be like, 'Avoid this guy' or 'fight this guy.' When you're the champion, you really have to take on. That's part of what being champion is; whoever they say you have to fight, you have to fight. People might not think that makes sense because we said we don't want to take a new fight on short notice. That's a whole different animal. It's not that we were avoiding the opponent, we were avoiding the situation. We wanted to make sure we were well-prepared. This is a world title in a sport that I think is the best in the world by far, and I want to take that seriously.
The only true challenges left for Jon Jones are Alexander Gustafsson and Dan Henderson, but since Lyoto Machida won against Dan Henderson, it will be hard to see Jones vs. Henderson. The next logical choice would be Gustafsson, but now that Jones is out due to his compound fracture on his toe, he will likely to be matched against Lyoto Machida for the #1 contender spot.
Tito Ortiz won the vacant belt by Unanimous Decision against Wanderlei Silva at UFC 25 on April 14, 2000 at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan. After he became champ, he succesfully defended his title against Yuki Kondo, Evan Tanner, Elvis Sinosic, Vladimir Matyushenko and Ken Shamrock. He then lost the title against Randy Couture at UFC 44 on September 26, 2003, at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada.
