Arch rival Jon Jones gives Israel Adesanya respect despite UFC 259 loss
Jon Jones has praised Israel Adesanya's effort to become the two-division UFC champion. 'Bones' took to Twitter and acknowledged Adesanya's hunger to be "great".
"Dare to be great, good job kid," tweeted Jones.
Jones and Adesanya have both exchanged heated words on social media ever since 'The Last Stylebender' made his presence felt in the UFC. Both superstars had agreed that they will lock horns inside the octagon at some point in future.
However, the chances of that are not promising since Adesanya has confirmed that he will move back to the middleweight division.
"I definitely will be back (at light heavyweight)... I'll go to 185 and I'm gonna rule that division," said Adesanya at the post-fight interview.
Israel Adesanya suffers the first loss of his professional MMA career
Israel Adesanya came up short in his effort to join the elite double-champions club of the UFC. As of now, the 'champ-champ' status still only belongs to the likes of Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes, and Henry Cejudo.
The 31-year-old Kiwi decided to move up a weight class to light heavyweight after dealt with most of the top contenders in the 185-pound division. Adesanya had mentioned in the past that he would eventually make his way into the 205-pound weight class to potentially challenge Jon Jones, who is now set to make his heavyweight debut.
Ahead of the big clash, Jan Blachowicz had predicted a second-round knockout of Israel Adesanya. He said he would use his brute force to dictate the fight, but wouldn't underestimate the striking pedigree of The Last Stylebender.
The UFC light heavyweight champion did exactly that to eke out a win against Israel Adesanya. Blachowicz was competing for the first time since September last year. He defeated Dominick Reyes at UFC 253 to claim the vacated light heavyweight championship. According to him, Glover Teixeira deserves to be the next fighter to have a crack at the light heavyweight championship.