Chael Sonnen: It appears that Jon Jones believes he will be cleared to fight at UFC 230
UFC

Chael Sonnen: It appears that Jon Jones believes he will be cleared to fight at UFC 230

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For Chael Sonnen, Jon Jones is seemingly confident that he would be cleared in time to fight at UFC 230, the company’s NYC card this November.

Even while on indefinite suspension, Jon Jones and his team have managed to keep themselves relevant enough. Manager Malki Kawa went on record in February expressing optimism about “Bones” returning before 2018 ends, while striking coach Brandon Gibson is excited about the former 205-pound champion’s newly-developed one-punch knockout power.

A few days ago, Jones himself made some revelations on social media, while posting some training snippets along with it.

For former UFC title contender Chael Sonnen, these actions are quite indicating, leading him to believe that Jones and his team may know something that the MMA public does not.

“If we are to believe that he is going to be out until summer of next year, which is the minimum that he would be out by the rules that have been explained to us,” Sonnen said on a recent episode of his Beyond the Fight podcast. “If we were to believe that, you would have to ask yourself ‘why is he training and putting out videos, and having coaches confirm that he is working now in August?’”

“It just does appear that Jon at least believes that he is about to be cleared and put onto that November card.”

Retired UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub actually shares the same inkling about a possible Jones return at UFC 230, the UFC’s annual Madison Square Garden event which takes place on November 3rd.

As for the opponent, Sonnen believes the only sensible one to make would be a third fight against Daniel Cormier, who still intends to take on two more fights before retiring in March of the coming year. The other question that he threw would be what weight the two men would be fighting at.

“If you’re Dana White and you gotta look at that and take Daniel at his word, and ‘this is my one and only shot perhaps to get Daniel and Jon together’, do you go for it? And even if you do, how do you get it done? Because you can’t get it done at 205 pounds because Daniel can’t make 205 pounds.”

“So do you get it done at heavyweight?” he continued. “And if you do, everything’s on the line now. Not just the title, the Brock Lesnar fight is now on the line.”

As of this posting, the headliner fight for UFC 230 has yet to be determined. The announced bookings so far are the lightweight fight between Dustin Poirier and Nate Diaz, as well as a middleweight fight between Paulo Henrique Costa and Yoel Romero.