UFC champion urges promotion to book title fight between Jon Jones and "real champ" Francis Ngannou

It would be unfortunate if the UFC were unable to book Jon Jones vs. Francis Ngannou at some point in the future.

Reigning UFC Aljamain Sterling recently urged the promotion to book the heavyweight clash and come to terms with Ngannou. On his podcast, he shared his views on the heavyweight title situation and mentioned that 'Bones' should maintain the same mentality he had when he was stripped of his light heavyweight title without ever losing.

He said:

"Technically, Francis Ngannou is the - I don't wanna say real champion, but he is still the real champ...Cause if we're going by what Jon Jones said to 'DC', you were never the real champ. You were like a placeholder kind of thing, because he never actually beat him. When they were leading up to that fight, the rematch. Then same thing kind of applies here. You gotta keep the same energy."

'Funk Master' continued by saying that he didn't mean any disrespect towards 'Bones' or downplaying what he accomplished this was weekend. Instead, he mentioned that he wants to see the top fighters competing against each other when they are at the top of their game, saying:

"I just hope the UFC does what the fans want and we don't get another Fedor Emelianenko situation where he never got to fight Brock Lesnar. We never got to see the biggest and the baddest dudes on the planet that everyone was talking about get to go at it...I wanna see it now, within the next year. That would be nice."

With former heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic confirming that he'll be challenging Jones in July, it'll be interesting to see whether the promotion circles back to 'The Predator' should Jones retain the belt in dominant fashion.

UFC 288 date and location announced

Per Press Release UFC 288 will take place at the Prudential Center in Newark New Jersey on May 6th
Main event will be Aljermain Sterling vs Henry Cejudo for the UFC Bantamweight Championship. Co-Main Event is Charles Oliveria vs Beneil Dariush plus Kron Gracie vs 🇨🇦 Charles… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… https://t.co/g9uZDeFU63

The location and bouts for UFC 288 were made official yesterday as the promotion announced on their social media that the event is set to take place at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on May 6.

The event will be headlined by the bantamweight championship bout between Aljamain Sterling and former two-division champion Henry Cejudo, who makes his return to the octagon after a three-year absence. In the co-main event, former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira takes on No.4 ranked lightweight Beneil Dariush in what could be a title eliminator fight.

There are also two featherweight bouts scheduled as Bryce Mitchell takes on Jonathan Pearce and Kron Gracie returns after a 4-year layoff to fight Charles Jourdain.