Outside Source
A few years back, Israel Adesanya and Jon Jones were not on the best of terms.
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That rivalry centered primarily on a hypothetical meeting between the two UFC stars back when Jones was reigning light heavyweight champion and Adesanya was considering a move up to attempt to become a two-division title holder. Today, however, Jones is the heavyweight king, and Adesanya is fully entrenched in his second reign as 185-pound ruler. So when the two fighters recently crossed paths during International Fight Week in Las Vegas, it became a viral feel-good moment.
The encounter almost didn’t happen, but when Adesanya elected to leave his hotel room to hang out at the casino bar, Jones happened to be in the same place. While “The Last Stylebender” won’t reveal exactly what was discussed, there was an instant positive connection.
“It’s no one’s business [what was discussed], that’s between me and him, but it definitely wasn’t a fake encounter,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel. “I think it was divine intervention. I honestly do, because I feel like there’s so many timelines where it could’ve ended up differently.
“… I get to the bar and I’m standing there looking at my phone, and then I hear, ‘No way,’ and you just think it’s some fan or whatever, and turned around and it was like, ‘Oh, s—t, what the f—k?’ And instantly, we just dapped up. The energy was just… if you were around, you witnessed history because the energy was just palpable. It was a mega moment in the best way possible. And we just sat down and chopped it up, it was cool. We chopped it up about everything, and that’s need-to-know basis. It was good vibes.”
And just like that, the animosity between the two champions is a thing of the past.
“Yeah, [the beef is squashed],” Adesanya said. “We have understanding and common ground. We’re competitors. That’s it. It’s like, why should I hate my brother?”
Adesanya also enjoyed seeing the positive reaction to the videos posted of he and Jones interacting on social media.
“I went deep into my YouTube comments, and every comment was like, ‘That made me smile, I was smiling so hard watching this,’ and giving people that feeling watching us spar and play around…It felt like, is this what world peace would feel like? Imagine world peace when people aren’t at war, people aren’t fighting. It felt like a little bit of world peace.”
Jones is currently preparing to face former heavyweight champ Stipe Miocic in the UFC 295 main event at Madison Square Garden in New York on Nov. 11. Adesanya, meanwhile, is expected to make his next title defense against Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 293 in Sydney — though that bout has not been formally announced. While it’s unclear if it will happen ahead of their upcoming fights, Adesanya is certain that he and Jones will train together at some point.
“We definitely will,” he said. “It’s in the works, it will happen.”
“Apes together strong!” – Caesar pic.twitter.com/PzAsgulO9Z
— Israel Adesanya (@stylebender) July 6, 2023
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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