It appears the proposal of a future BMF bout with the sport’s consensus greatest of all-time has found its way onto Alex Pereira’s radar.
The UFC’s reigning light heavyweight champion’s name was brought up this week ahead of Saturday’s heavyweight championship fight at UFC 309 between Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic, and Pereira responded by sending a message to Jones via social media on Wednesday.
Pereira posted a photo to his Instagram story of UFC president Dana White holding the BMF title — which has been featured three times since being introduced in 2019 — with the caption: “Chama my brother, let’s make them wait …”
Jones, the organization’s heavyweight champ, told Aaron Bronsteter earlier this week that if he gets his hand raised like he plans to at Madison Square Garden in his home state of New York, then he’d be more interested in a future fight with Pereira than he would a unification bout with interim heavyweight titleholder Tom Aspinall.
“It’d be cool to fight over the heavyweight championship, but I would also willingly give up the heavyweight championship (to face Pereira),” Jones added. “I walked away from the light heavyweight championship. I’d love to walk away from this one as well, on top, on my own terms.”
As an aside, Jones is not doing himself any favours dispelling allegations he’s ducking Aspinall. By saying he’d rather give up the title than face the defending interim champion who is an objectively more difficult matchup than Pereira, it is the definition of "ducking." And do not conflate that logic by equating it to Jones being afraid of Aspinall or Jones not being the G.O.A.T. of mixed martial arts. Those things can all simultaneously be true.
Pereira and Jones are ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, in the UFC’s latest pound-for-pound rankings and that hypothetical matchup would likely be a commercial success.
Before any of that can come to fruition, Jones will need to defeat Miocic, a former heavyweight champion who still holds the record for most title defences in the division.
Jones did present a compelling argument for why facing Pereira would be an appealing matchup for fans.
“We both have two belts in two weight classes and the night we fought, we’d both be fighting for our third belt, which would be the ‘BMF.’ How cool would that be?” he said.
In theory, it could be quite cool, were it not for the fact it doesn’t make sense to tie up two divisions to facilitate the super fight. There are suitable challengers at 205 pounds for Pereira, and Aspinall is right there ready to compete for undisputed UFC gold.
Also, Jones does not fight using a BMF-style approach. He strategically uses elite fighting IQ, defence and takedowns to help him win his fights. He has never shown himself to be a stand-and-trade type of fighter, and it's one of the contributing factors to his longevity and outstanding in-cage career accomplishments.
Of the three BMF title fights the UFC has booked to date, one took place at welterweight (Jorge Masvidal won the inaugural belt at UFC 244 by defeating Nate Diaz) and two were contested in the lightweight division (Justin Gaethje knocked out Dustin Poirier at UFC 291 in 2023 and Max Holloway knocked out Gathje at UFC 300 in April).
Holloway is technically the reigning 'BMF,' so the UFC would theoretically need to introduce a second BMF belt or a new symbolic title altogether if the organization chooses to pursue a Jones vs. Pereira matchup without one of their undisputed titles at stake.
The UFC does not always operate like a meritocracy, so it is entirely possible we could see this matchup or matchups like it at some point in 2025.
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