UFC president Dana White announced on Saturday that the organization is in talks to book Jan Blachowicz vs Israel Adesanya for the Light Heavyweight title. During the UFC on ESPN+ 39 post-fight press conference White stated that the decision was made after Robert Whittaker showed no interest in fighting for the Middleweight belt.
“Listen, when the fight was over on ‘Fight Island,’ the last fight, I was like, ‘I’m going to have to sit down with this kid (Adesanya) and convince him on why he needs to fight Whittaker. Whittaker comes out and says he doesn’t want to fight him craziest shit I’ve ever seen. Yeah, there’s no arguing with Israel now. I thought Whittaker deserved the shot and Whittaker doesn’t want it, so yeah, we’ll let him do it.”
Dana White
If Adesanya Beats Blachowicz The Jones Fight Has To Happen
If Adesanya were to beat Blachowicz at Light Heavyweight the UFC will make Adesanya vs Jones at 205. This is honestly a brilliant move by the UFC to give Adesanya a big test to see if he can handle moving up in weight. A win over Blachowicz would also make Adesanya a double champ, which would skyrocket Adesanya’s career. If I’m Jon Jones I’m sitting back and seeing what happens at 205. Moving to Heavyweight isn’t worth risking a potential super fight with Adesanya.
So what does this mean for Whittaker and the rest of the Middleweight division? I don’t see anyone fighting for a vacant title with Adesanya’s move to LHW and I think he’ll stay active in both divisions. Truth be told Dana is 100% right when it comes to Whittaker. There’s so many killers at 185 that you have to fight for a shot at the belt and stand out in the division. It will be interesting to see what happens in the Middleweight division in 2021.
