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‘No chance’… Jon Jones vs Francis Ngannou crossover fight ruled out by UFC Hall of Famer

Michael Bisping doesn’t think we’ll see the UFC and PFL co-promote Jon Jones vs Francis Ngannou.

Jones is the current UFC heavyweight champion, and usually holding MMA’s premier title is enough to convince fans that you are the best in the division.

However, he won the belt after it was made vacant by Ngannou when he left the UFC following a bitter falling out during prolonged contract negotiations.

After a couple of big-money boxing bouts, ‘The Predator’ recently returned to MMA and made it look easy as he quickly knocked out PFL champion Renan Ferreira.

Michael Bisping anchors the broadcast during the UFC Fight Night event at UFC APEX on May 20, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Michael Bisping advises UFC against co-promotion

Debate is raging about who is the best heavyweight right now.

Jones will make his case against Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 in New York on November 16.

However, even if he wins in spectacular fashion people will point to Ngannou as one of the men he needs to overcome to establish his dominance at heavyweight.

A fight with Ngannou is hard to make as they are with rival MMA promotions, but it’s not impossible. Still, Michael Bisping doubts we’ll ever get to see Jones take on the Cameroonian KO artist.

“I don’t think it’s gonna happen,” the TNT Sports pundit said during an exclusive interview with Bloody Elbow.

“Why? I understand that money talks, and you never know, maybe some gigantic amount of money appears from one of the parties in Saudia Arabia and maybe that gets the deal done.

“In terms of business, if it [the UFC] was my organization that I’d built for 30 years, that this sport was founded upon, and then you’ve got PFL out there…

“I’m just saying if it was my business, who stands to gain more there? Who stands to gain? The PFL. The PFL then are held in the same regard as the UFC.

“Yeah, it would be an amazing fight, and we all want to see it. Of course we do, we all want to see the best fight the best.

“But if I was running the UFC I’d be like, ‘No chance! We tried to make that fight. We offered him a ton of money and he didn’t want to do it. It’s a shame’. I wouldn’t cross-promote right now.”

Jon Jones doubts he’ll ever fight Tom Aspinall

If a fight with Ngannou isn’t going to happen, fans will turn their attention to a clash between Jones and interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall.

Dana White insists that Jones vs Aspinall will happen in 2025, but ‘Bones’ has repeatedly distanced himself from the match-up and claimed he’d prefer to fight light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira.

“More than likely not,” Jones recently said when asked if he will ever fight Aspinall.

“I feel like Tom Aspinall is, I don’t want to say ‘nobody’, but he just hasn’t proven anything. He hasn’t done anything – I understand that he won his belt against Sergei, Sergei just got slaughtered by someone else.

“So, I’m not here to gamble someone else making a name off of me, I’m here to compete against the guys where when we look back 10 years from now, ‘Jon Jones fought this guy, that guy, this legend, this champion…’.”

“If there would to be a fight with a guy that is still on the UFC roster that would be not only financially worth it, but legacy worth it, it would be Alex Pereira.”

Watch UFC 309: Jones v Miocic exclusively live on TNT Sports Box Office from 1am on Saturday 16 November. For more info visit: tntsports.co.uk/boxoffice

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