Jon Jones’ manager Richard Schaefer, talked about the new deal Jones signed and his upcoming heavyweight debut.
MMA fans have been waiting for the day Jon Jones will make his heavyweight debut for literal years.
Jones made the decision to retire from the light heavyweight championship and focus on heavyweight more than two years ago.
During the protracted changeover phase, Jones had to take care of his physical needs and gain enough weight to compete in the heavyweight division. There were also problems with the negotiations, but they are all now settled. Jones will now compete in March for the heavyweight championship.
On March 4, Jones will compete in Las Vegas for the UFC heavyweight title against Ciryl Gane. UFC president Dana White stated that Jones has signed a new 8 bout contract with the organization. Richard Schaefer joined Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour as a guest to talk about his client’s new contract, his heavyweight debut, and other matters.
“UFC realizes that Jon Jones is the GOAT and he is a generational talent. So they were very, very much interested and very open to work with us and come to the conclusion of putting together a fair deal which we did here.”
“I mean that deal which we made for Jon makes Jon now the, in the history of UFC, the highest pay heavyweight athlete and overall, I think as Hunter mentioned to me probably the second-highest-ever next to Conor McGregor. It was a long negotiation, but it was not a hostile negotiation.”
Jones’ decision to rejoin the UFC did not seem to be influenced by the situation with Ngannou. In fact, Schaefer said that Jones did not care who he fought; he just cared about winning the title.
“I personally, by the way, I think that Cyril with his skill set and his youth and so on, is a bigger fight than Francis would have been, certainly more of a challenge and I think it just shows you how determined Jon Jones is to become heavyweight champion.”
“For him it was never like, Oh, I’m not going to fight this guy or I’m not going to fight that guy, for him it was like, I don’t really care, I want to fight for the heavyweight world title, and just bring whoever it is. That is why he is the GOAT, that’s what GOATs do.”
Of course UFC isn’t about to open their books – because if they were there’s a lot of surprises there. MMA journalist focusing on economics of the business, John Nash, previously revealed that the biggest contract he could verify was Khabib Nurmagomedovs in part due to the fact that Khabib helped broker the Fight Island deal with Abu Dhabi back in 2020.