‘The Karate Hottie’ Michelle Waterson was excited to see Jon Jones return to the Octagon.
Jones made his comeback after more than three years on the shelf and immediately reminded the world just how good he is. ‘Bone’s claimed the vacant UFC heavyweight championship, needing only 124 seconds to dispatch the division’s top contender, Ciryl Gane. In a MiddleEasy exclusive, James Lynch spoke with strawweight standout and friend of Jon Jones, Michelle Waterson.
‘The Karate Hottie’ shared her thoughts on Jones’ triumphant return to the Octagon and how she sees things going for ‘Bones’ in his new heavyweight surroundings.
“I think it’s very cool,” Waterson said. “Honestly, I think this is going to be an easier bracket for him than the bracket he was in beforehand. Fun for him. He’s a great wrestler and he just has the upper hand on all these guys. And maybe I’m speaking too soon, but I had high hopes that Gane was going to give him a little bit of a challenge and it just didn’t seem that way. I feel like Jon is gonna run through these guys.”
Michelle Waterson Conflicted by Jon Jones Taking Top Spot on the P4P Ranking
While Waterson was thrilled to see Jon Jones come back and capture UFC gold in his first fight back, she doesn’t necessarily agree with his position as the No. 1 ranked pound-for-pound fighter.
“It’s hard because the bigger guys… I might be biased because I feel like the smaller guys are more technical so it’s like, how do you call pound-for-pound? Like, if you took [Alexander] Volkanovski and you made him Jon Jones size, how would he do? So it’s kind of one of those things where it’s like, I don’t know. I’m a little biased in that sense because I feel like the lower-class guys are more technical.”
Michelle Waterson has been unusually inactive as of late. Previously fighting twice a year since 2017, ‘The Karate Hottie’ only competed once in 2021 and followed that up with a July 2022 contest against Amanda Lemos which was her last appearance inside the Octagon to date. However, it does look as though her activity will pick up soon. Waterson recently announced that she has signed an 8-fight contract with the promotion. A deal that comes a week after teammate Holly Holm signed her own 6-fight deal.
