{"id":191797,"date":"2025-10-05T15:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T15:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/191797\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T15:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T15:51:07","slug":"alex-pereira-admits-ufc-320-post-fight-call-out-was-originally-planned-for-jon-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/191797\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Pereira admits UFC 320 post-fight call out was originally planned for Jon Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS \u2013 Alex Pereira admits his UFC 320<\/a> post-fight callout was going to be for Jon Jones, but considering the recent tragedy in his family, he changed course.<\/p>\n

Pereira (13-3 MMA, 10-2 UFC) exacted revenge on Magomed Ankalaev in the main event of UFC 320 to recapture the light heavyweight title. It was a dominant, violent first-round statement finish<\/a> \u2013 the type of performance that would warrant a big callout, and Pereira had one planned. However, when tragedy struck the Jones family, “Poatan” changed course.<\/p>\n

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During his post-fight interview in the octagon with Joe Rogan, Pereira called for a moment of silence for Arthur Jones, who died suddenly<\/a> on Friday. Pereira explained that he had a prepared speech, but given the gravity of the moment, he opted to show respect for the Jones family instead of focusing on creating a potential superfight.<\/p>\n

“With all due respect, with all the respect I have for the situation, and I’ve said this in the back: a lot of people try to create a lot of stuff around this,” Pereira told MMA Junkie and other reporters through an interpreter at a post-fight news conference. “Again, please, with all the respect, I was gonna ask for Jon Jones at the White House, but with everything that happened, it’s not the right time to talk about it.”<\/p>\n

The moment of silence for Arthur was a classy move by Pereira, which prompted the first tweet from Jon since the news of his brother’s death. “Wow Alex \ud83d\ude4f\ud83c\udffe,” Jones wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pereria’s aborted callout was a peek into his future intentions. The light heavyweight champion also expressed the idea of moving up to the heavyweight division, potentially to challenge for a title in a third UFC weight class \u2013 a move UFC CEO Dana White isn’t entirely against<\/a>, but doesn’t necessarily agree with at the moment.<\/p>\n

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While the UFC went through a period where titleholders chased champ-champ status, as of late, there has been a shift. Champions such as Ilia Topuria and Islam Makhachev have needed to vacate their title ahead of moving up to challenge for the belt in the next weight class up.<\/p>\n

If Pereira is granted the opportunity to challenge for the heavyweight crown, he believes vacating the 205-pound title wouldn’t be necessary.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think that’s needed,” Pereira said. “Everyone knows how often I fight, so that’s not gonna be an issue.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC 320: Alex Pereira explains aborted plan to call out Jon Jones<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2013 Alex Pereira admits his UFC 320 post-fight callout was going to be for Jon Jones,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[11159,67818,64,63,786,2765,11877,785,85,787],"class_list":{"0":"post-191797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-alex-pereira","9":"tag-arthur-jones","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-fighting","13":"tag-joe-rogan","14":"tag-jon-jones","15":"tag-mma","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}