{"id":806152,"date":"2026-07-17T13:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T13:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/806152\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T13:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T13:21:10","slug":"jon-jones-will-only-face-oleksandr-usyk-in-retirement-fight-under-one-condition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/806152\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Jones will only face Oleksandr Usyk in retirement fight under one condition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oleksandr Usyk is in the market for an opponent for his retirement fight, and UFC legend Jon Jones is one name that has been reported as an option.<\/p>\n<p>Usyk\u2019s last outing was met with criticism both before and after the event, as the then unified heavyweight ruler faced 1-0-recorded Rico Verhoeven, only for Verhoeven to provide a much tougher test than anticipated before being <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/c3r23q3qr7do\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">controversially stopped in round 11.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Ukrainian great has opted to vacate all three of his heavyweight belts, but has said that he will remain in the sport for one \u2018last dance\u2019 before retirement.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/froch-on-usyk-pursuing-wilder-for-fight\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Deontay Wilder has been considered the frontrunner to be in the opposite corner<\/a>, but Jones and a rematch with Verhoeven are amongst the other possibilities that have been mentioned.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Speaking with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ringmagazine.com\/news\/interview-jon-jones-on-fighting-usyk-ufc-return-dana-white-1zrvdM4fTYti8G2BOdPuJp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Ring Magazine<\/a>, however, Jones ruled himself out of a boxing match with Usyk, only willing if it were to take place under MMA rules.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, [I am not interested] not at all. Usyk is Usyk, man, he is one of the absolute GOAT\u2019s of heavyweight boxing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI also am aware that he does wrestling and that wrestling has been a heavy part of his training for many years, that is probably why he is so dominant in the clinch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf he would like to test his total combat skills, I would oblige him in that, but to handicap myself by only using my hands \u2013 that is just not the world that I come from.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOut of all of the heavyweight boxers, I do see Usyk as having the highest potential [in MMA] and making it competitive, but I am no boxer and I don\u2019t really consider Usyk to be a complete fighter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that the world knows what would happen if we were locked in the same room and I\u2019ll just leave it at that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>News on Usyk\u2019s farewell fight is expected in the coming months, with Wilder\u2019s team saying they are open to making it happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk is in the market for an opponent for his retirement fight, and UFC legend Jon Jones&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-806152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806152","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=806152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}