Jones vs. Lesnar not likely? Daniel Comier next in line
LAS VEGAS — To use UFC president Dana White’s phrase, Jon Jones has probably cleaned out the light heavyweight division two or three times over.
There is no logical contender that would get the masses salivating and bring in the non-MMA media to chronicle the events. Thiago Santos is almost certainly next after Jones routed Anthony Smith on Saturday and took a one-sided unanimous decision to retain his belt in the main event of UFC 235 at T-Mobile Arena.
But Brock Lesnar would be the guy who, pitted against Jones, would make the sports world stop and take notice.
Lesnar, though, will first compete in “WrestleMania” next month against Seth Rollins. And when he’s ready to fight, White said he’ll probably face heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier, not Jones.
Jones hasn’t shown much interest in fighting any heavyweight except for Lesnar.
“Go big or go home,” Jones said following his domination of Smith. “And a Brock Lesnar fight — extremely high risk, and extremely high reward. I don’t really see myself versus anyone that could bring in the numbers me and Brock could bring in.”
Jones vs. Lesnar would probably sell two million payper-views, and there aren’t many fights in any combat sport that could be made now that would remotely approach that kind of number.
White, though, isn’t interested at this point.
“Cormier wants that fight and if he wants it, he’s going to get it,” White said.
So that creates a kind of Jones problem for him: Who does he match his legendary champion against who could provide a competitive fight and generate interest among the fan base?
Santos is an entertaining fighter and has been amazing since moving to light heavyweight, but it seems
unlikely he’d be able to do much against Jones.
Smith hung with Jones as well as anyone has in a long time. He never really threatened Jones much and was perplexed at the post-fight news conference about why he couldn’t get going.
“I don’t feel like he ran through me and it’s not like he beat the s--t out of me,” Smith said. “I just couldn’t get going.”
Jones has that kind of impact on opponents. Cormier surrendered the light heavyweight belt in December, but is still ranked No. 1 in the division. Alexander Gustafsson, whom Jones blew out at UFC 232, is second and Smith is ranked third. Santos is fourth, followed by Volkan Oezdemir, Jan Blachowicz and Corey Anderson.