"To me, he doesn't exist!" - Israel Adesanya's coach reveals why Jan Blachowicz and not Jon Jones is the greatest LHW in the world
Israel Adesanya’s head coach Eugene Bareman has explained why he doesn’t believe Jon Jones is the greatest light heavyweight in the world.
Adesanya is coming off the back of a defeat to Jan Blachowicz, failing in his attempt to win belts in two weight classes. While he may not have been successful in his venture, “The Last Stylebender” had a pretty good attitude about the whole situation after the fight. He knows that his focus now needs to turn back towards the middleweight division, in a similar line of thinking to Max Holloway when he failed to make a successful ascent up to lightweight against Dustin Poirier.
Bareman vs Jones
Still, the question of Izzy fighting Jon Jones hasn’t gone away. You could even say talks have intensified as the days have gone on with “Bones” going after Adesanya on social media.
During a post-fight interview with Submission Radio, Adesanya’s head coach Eugene Bareman opened up about why he doesn’t value Jon Jones as an all-time great anymore.
“Once you cheat - Jon Jones is about as irrelevant as TJ Dillashaw. To me, they don’t exist. Is anything TJ Dillashaw did in the past relevant anymore now that he’s cheated? Nah. It’s no different for Jon Jones, so you can’t talk to me about Jon Jones. I have a particular opinion and that isn’t shared by the rest of the world so, at the moment, the greatest 205-er is Jan Blachowicz. There’s no one else. There’s no one else as great as him.”
Bareman was, of course, referring to the fact that Jones has been embroiled in several doping scandals throughout his MMA career.
There’s no guarantee that Jones won’t be caught out again. But Bareman knows deep down there’s a very good chance Jones’ll meet Adesanya somewhere down the road if he can keep knocking back the contenders at 185 pounds.
The possibilities are truly endless and that’s the kind of position Dana White wants to be in because these two men will continue hating on one another for a long time to come.