Bellator having rankings is so completely unnecessary lol. Props to Tim Johnson being the #1 heavyweight contender though. And the MVP on is wild.
Jesus Christ Jones either set your price or stfu and go elsewhere. Whether or not you’re right or wrong, you vacated your title and have sat back waiting for what? To see who rises to your approval and wait the UFC out? We get it, you’re a goat, but at this point pissing on Twitter every day is only gonna hurt the general public interest and the UFC’s desire to work with you. Look at Cyborg for instance.
That was at 50 percent capacity and only 7500 fans per session. Far from a huge stadium show and according to Dana he won’t do partial capacity crowds.
He named his price months ago and Dana shit all over it. Jon's always been upfront about wanting more money to fight at heavyweight, so if you're getting lowballed in private, then you take it public. The fight has only gotten bigger since then. The best Dana can do is pull his tired "he doesn't want the fight" line out again? If you don't want to promote the guy, like you didn't with Cyborg, release him to someone who wants to work with him. I know Jones is a shithead, but I can't believe people are siding with Dana White, of all people, on this.
It’s not siding, they’re just both thick headed and in no way is the majority of the content Jones tweets gonna help his position. He is second to Conor in terms of promotion and inequality with the UFC. How many times has this league given him special treatment when he fucks up? Was he not the top paid man for nearly a decade? Also what is our standard for when we say Jones has been offered enough for the fight? Once it’s double what Ngannou is being paid? This situation sucks but Jon does this shit every/any time somebody else in the sport is in the limelight.
Yep Jones has made so many mistakes and gotten away with most things. Also, he isn’t a Connor or even Masvidal level draw. He hasn’t been convincing in his wins in quite a while either. I’m all for fighter pay and want everyone paid more but I’m tired of the guys at the top bitching like they aren’t paid well when some of the guys on the undercards are fighting for scraps and even a lot of veterans or too 10 guys don’t make what they should. Jones move the HW is a big draw, but I don’t think he’s as big of a draw as he thinks he is.
Jones also isn't really a needle mover so (whether intentional or not) he might well price himself out of the fight and Dana (who is not one to wait around on guys and is probably more than sick of his shit) is just going to move on to the next guy
It’s true. All of this interest and talk about his HW debut doing huge numbers is pure speculation. His PPV numbers are good depending on the opponent, but he never drew Connor, Rhonda or Brock type of numbers. Also with UFC’s deal with ESPN they don’t have a huge incentive to pay Jones a ton since they are already getting their money from ESPN. The only incentive to pay Jones would be to make ESPN happy since they stand to profit most from having a huge PPV butyrate.
I think Jones/Francis would do some pretty great numbers tbf. 1.2ish million wouldn’t shock me. Jon would do well off PPV points alone so I don’t think he should be asking for Conor money or expecting it. Ronda/Brock/Conor were always in a league of their own. One that Jon/Anderson/GSP couldn’t reach.
I think it’s a hell of a fight. But after that Stipe KO, Francis is the draw, not him as much. Ngannou vs Lewis 2 or Stipe 3 are just as enticing to me.
I can understand them wanting Francis to maybe get a defense first or two. He’s much more marketable than Stipe imo.
I was thinking that the Lewis fight might not have much buzz behind it but then I remembered Lewis was the last person to beat Francis and there's your buzz I guess
Francis isn’t a huge draw unfortunately. Neither are Stipe or Lewis. He needs a fight like Jones to get to that point.
I was mostly joking when I posted this, but I do think the rematch would be a lot of fun. That said, I don't know how you sell that when they put on the worst fight ever. I guess it'd be a good first defense before getting to Jon, but man, that's playing with fire. I like Stipe, but he needs two wins, at least, to even be remotely interesting in a trilogy. Him beating Blaydes or someone isn't going to do anything for me.