Gilbert Burns Believes Heavyweight Is Wrong Move For Jon Jones, Lots Of ‘Bad Matchups’

Burns believes Jones is making the wrong move by going up to heavyweight and should instead face Adesanya.

Jones Burns
Images via YouTube/Instagram

UFC welterweight Gilbert Burns believes Jon Jones is making the wrong move by going up to heavyweight.

Jones vacated his light heavyweight title last year to prepare for his long-awaited move up to heavyweight. He won’t get an instant title shot for now as Francis Ngannou is set to challenge current champion Stipe Miocic first.

However, it was reported that the UFC was hoping for the winner of the fight to face Jones in the summer.

As far as Burns is concerned, Ngannou will defeat Miocic to become the new champion. And if Ngannou is able to connect with a fight-ending punch on Jones, the Brazilian pondered how that would affect “Bones” who has never tasted defeat before.

Instead, he believes Jones should remain at light heavyweight and fight the likes of Israel Adesanya and Jan Blachowicz.

“Jon Jones at heavyweight — me? I don’t like that so much,” Burns said on his YouTube channel. “When you have a guy like Francis Ngannou in the heavyweight division, I don’t know. I don’t see an easy path for Jon Jones in the heavyweight division. Or he has to fight Stipe if he Stipe beats Ngannou, Stipe is fighting Jon Jones. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think Ngannou is going to defeat Stipe and Ngannou will fight Jon Jones. And I don’t like that fight.

“… I don’t like the what if but what if Jon Jones goes against Francis Ngannou and he’s [Ngannou] going to knock him out badly. How about that? What is Jon Jones going to do? First, when you’re undefeated and you lose, it’s very tough. … If you’re champion, champion, undefeated, undisputed and then you lose badly, I don’t know how that’s going to affect you right here [pointing to the head]. I don’t know about Jon Jones’ future. I think he still has a couple of guys to beat at 205. My opinion — he should fight Adesanya. Stay at 205, beat Jan Blachowicz, beat Santos again, another guy.”

Burns: Bad Matchups For Jones Besides Ngannou

It’s not only Ngannou who is a bad matchup for Jones either according to Burns. “Durinho” also pointed to the likes of Curtis Blaydes and Alistair Overeem.

“I don’t know if it’s just me but there’s a lot of bad matchups for him,” Burns explained. “Curtis Blaydes is a wrestler, good striker, hits very, very hard. Then we got Alistair Overeem, they used to train together and Overeem called him out. What does that mean? If the guy called you out and you used to train together, that’s a little confidence at least.

“Overeem, Curtis Blaydes, Francis Ngannou? I don’t know. I got to see it to believe it. But I don’t think it’s a good move for Jon Jones to go up to heavyweight as of right now.”

We’ll get to find out if it’s the right move later this year.

Published on January 4, 2021 at 5:22 pm
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