Ben Askren has put Jon Jones on blast, saying he had his chance to fight Francis Ngannou when they were both in the UFC.
During Ngannou’s UFC heavyweight championship reign, former light heavyweight champ Jones stepped away from the sport to put on size for his his move up a division. That took three years and once Jones was ready to return, Ngannou was already in the middle of a contract dispute with the UFC, which led to him vacating his belt to explore free agency and ultimately sign with PFL this week.
Jones submitted Ciryl Gane to claim the vacant heavyweight title in March and has questioned how Ngannou can call himself the “baddest man on the planet” if he doesn’t fight him. Thing is, Jones had plenty of time to prove Ngannou wrong before.
That’s what Askren is harping on.
“Why I thought, ‘Wow, this is really weird, almost hypocritical,’ is Jon chose to be inactive for three years,” Askren said on Daniel Cormier’s YouTube channel. “He chose not to fight. I don’t care what Jon does, (but) he chose not to fight for three years. Francis is in the UFC pretty much the entirety of that three years, and we’ve seen other people go up weight classes.
“‘The Stylebender’ (Adesanya) did it and lost to Jan (Blachowicz) and went back to 185. So, we’ve seen other people do it. He had plenty of opportunity to fight Francis Ngannou, so now Francis Ngannou wants to say, ‘I’m the baddest man on the planet.’ I think he should be able to. Can Jon argue he is also? Sure. But Jon can’t say, ‘You can’t do it.’ Because Jon didn’t fight him for three years.”
Askren said he’d pick Jones to beat Ngannou but explains that while Ngannou was knocking guys out en route to a UFC title, Jones was on the sidelines since February 2020.
“I would choose Jon. I think Jon likely is the best guy,” Askren said. “So my point of contention is, Jon was inactive while Francis was in the UFC and the champion. Jon could have said, ‘Let’s fight because I want to prove I am, without a shadow of a doubt, the baddest dude,’ and it didn’t happen. Francis can still leave, they never fought, and if he wants to say it for a little while, he can say it. I’m not mad at him.”