{"id":806236,"date":"2026-07-17T14:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T14:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/806236\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T14:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T14:17:08","slug":"jon-jones-challenges-oleksandr-usyk-to-a-cage-fight-i-am-not-a-boxer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/806236\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Jones challenges Oleksandr Usyk to a cage fight: \u2018I am not a boxer\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jon Jones says a lot of things about his fighting career, and many of the things he says change on a day to day basis. But action speak louder than words, so it was interesting to find out that \u201cBones\u201d is still in the UFC\u2019s drug testing pool,<\/a> just in case he wants to say yes when the UFC makes their next contractually obligated offer for him to fight.<\/p>\n

One bout that he won\u2019t say yes to, though, is a fight with Oleksandr Usyk in a boxing ring. Usyk recently relinquished his many heavyweight titles and revealed he\u2019d have one \u2018last dance.\u2019 Against who? After a controversial win<\/a> over kickboxing champ Rico Verhooven, there were plenty of choices. One option that few expected was Jon Jones.<\/p>\n

The Ring Magazine, which functions<\/a> as the official press stenographers of Saudi power broker Turki Alalshikh, recently revealed that Jones was a leading candidate<\/a> to face Usyk. And now we have Jon Jones giving a wide-ranging interview to The Ring. But ever the contrarian when it comes to fight bookings, Jones has said he\u2019s only interested in fighting Usyk under MMA rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsyk is Usyk, man, he is one of the absolute GOATs of heavyweight boxing\u201d Jones said. \u201cI also am aware that he does wrestling, and that wrestling has been a heavy part of his training for many years, which is probably why he is so dominant in the clinch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he would like to test his total combat skills, I would oblige in that. But to handicap myself by only using my hands is not the world that I come from. So out of all the heavyweight boxers, I do see Usyk as having the highest potential of making it competitive [in MMA], but I am no boxer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really consider Usyk to be a complete fighter,\u201d Jones concluded. \u201cI think the world knows what would happen if we were locked in the same room.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would be wild for the greatest heavyweight of his generation to end his combat sports career with a crossover fight in mixed martial arts. As Anthony Joshua noted,<\/a> there\u2019s a steady stream of MMA fighters entering the boxing ring but the number of boxers entering the cage is very, very low.<\/p>\n

If Usyk and Turki want Jones, though, it\u2019ll have to be in the cage. Which means it probably won\u2019t happen, which leaves us back where we were before: with Jones not really retired but not looking like he\u2019ll fight any time soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jon Jones says a lot of things about his fighting career, and many of the things he says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,43957,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-806236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing-news-results","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806236","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=806236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}