{"id":298890,"date":"2025-11-22T04:10:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T04:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/298890\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T04:10:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T04:10:15","slug":"jon-jones-sees-holes-in-both-alex-pereira-and-tom-aspinalls-grappling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/298890\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Jones sees holes in both Alex Pereira and Tom Aspinall’s grappling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jon Jones sees himself exploiting Alex Pereira and Tom Aspinall<\/a>‘s game in the same way.<\/p>\n

Jones (28-1 MMA, 22-1 UFC) was on a collision course with Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) when he held the UFC heavyweight title, but opted to relinquish his belt and retire. As a result, Aspinall was promoted to undisputed champion.<\/p>\n

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But now that Jones is back in the drug-testing pool with intentions of returning, he sees UFC light heavyweight champion Pereira (13-3 MMA, 10-2 UFC) as the more lucrative fight. But make no mistake about it, Jones is confident in how he matches up against both champions.<\/p>\n

“With Pereira, I would just have to be smart. I would have to be really smart,” Jones said on Geoffrey Woo’s podcast<\/a>. “I would have to use what’s in front of me. The biggest difference between Pereira and Aspinall is the level of footage that I have. Pereira posts everything \u2013 every sparring session. I have a whole kickboxing career to study from. I have a pretty decent resume in MMA to watch now, to take things from. I feel like Pereira is really stuck in a certain way of fighting.<\/p>\n

“He has tendencies in his combinations, tendencies in his counters and his defense, and it would be my job to find the holes inside of those tendencies, which I feel like I could. I would imagine my reach is slightly longer. I think one of the things everyone is underestimating when it comes to our fight is my physical strength. I don’t always look like the strongest guy around, I’m not overly muscular, but everyone who wrestles me, they all say the same thing, ‘He’s so much more powerful than I would have imagined him being.’ Where he punches and kicks really hard, I think my grappling, power, and wisdom would be a lot for him to handle.”<\/p>\n

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Aspinall has proven to be the more well-rounded fighter than Pereira, but Jones sees the Brit as no match for him on the ground either.<\/p>\n

“I also feel like that would be the same scenario with Tom Aspinall,” Jones said. “I don’t think the U.K. wrestling system is as good as people think it is, and I don’t think their jiu-jitsu programs are as good as people say it is. Where Tom is a lot physically bigger, it would probably take me a little more effort. I think it would be the same story if I got Tom to the ground as it would be if I got Pereira to the ground.<\/p>\n

“To me, it’s the same fight. They’re both strong on their feet, hit very hard on their feet, and I think they both have holes in the grappling department. So when you simplify it like that, now it’s more a matter of legacy: What would make more sense? Do you fight the guy who is impressive right now, who no one, I don’t think, is going to care about a few years from now? Or do you fight the guy who’s going to be remembered around the world for a very long time? In Brazil, Pereira is an absolute idol right now.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Jon Jones reveals same approach for Alex Pereira, Tom Aspinall fights<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jon Jones sees himself exploiting Alex Pereira and Tom Aspinall‘s game in the same way. Jones (28-1 MMA,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[11038,49,48,641,1866,638,82,1972,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-298890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-alex-pereira","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-jon-jones","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tom-aspinall","16":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}