Alex Pereira put himself back on top of the light heavyweight division with a lopsided knockout win over Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 320, and now, he’s eying a potential showdown against Jon Jones at the UFC White
House card in 2026.
But as big as that fight might be, Pereira likely sets foot in the octagon as a massive underdog going up against Jones, who is widely considered the greatest fighter of all time. That’s why UFC legend Matt Brown believes Jones only real option is finally facing current heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall because he just doesn’t see Pereira having much of a chance in the same fight.
“I want the competitive fight,” Brown explained on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “That goes exactly right into what I was saying. Do we want entertainment? What Alex and Jon is going to do is it’s going to have a ridiculous buildup. Where everybody’s going to be pumped. There’s going to be people betting on Alex, there’s going to be people just like Conor [McGregor] going and fighting Floyd [Mayweather] — like oh yeah, Conor’s got a chance! I think Alex has a better chance than Conor did against Floyd, by the way, but you get my point.
“The matchup is literally the nightmare matchup for Alex Pereira. Jon is as big, probably a little bit bigger than Alex Pereira. At heavyweight, certainly bigger. A million times better wrestler. There’s no way in hell that Alex has wrestling at Jon Jones’ level at this point. Even if Jon Jones is out doing cocaine for the last year and then just shows up and fights.”
The same can’t be said for Aspinall, who has transformed into a human wrecking machine at heavyweight with eight wins in the UFC — all by knockout or submission with only one fight making it to the second round. Aspinall is currently matched up against Ciryl Gane in the UFC 321 main event, but he’s a sizeable favorite to win and retain his title.
Brown argues that Aspinall is a legitimate threat to actually topple Jones and hand the former heavyweight and light heavyweight champion the first real loss of his career. On the flipside, while he admits that anything can happen in a fight, Brown just doesn’t see a clear path to victory for Pereira over Jones.
“I think the odds would be pretty heavily in Jon’s favor there.,” Brown said. “Jon and Alex both being ‘A’ sides, we know that Jon is probably going to win this fight. I don’t think there will be a lot of debate on who’s going to win the fight. The chances of it looking like Jones-[Ciryl] Gane is pretty high.”
Now Brown concedes that just based on fan interest alone that Jones vs. Pereira is probably the bigger fight but that doesn’t mean that a matchup against Aspinall just falls off a cliff in comparison.
The real question comes down to whether or not the UFC is just trying to make the White House card a pure spectacle or if there’s hope for some really meaningful, championship level fights.
“Is it a sport or is it entertainment?” Brown said. “Entertainment wise, I think we talked a little bit about the White House card, period, is this going to be make the biggest fights you can or make relevant fights? If you’re making the biggest fights you can, you go with Alex Pereira-Jon Jones, 100 percent, especially if you’re Dana [White] and you trust that Jon is going to make it there on time or not go to jail in the meantime or anything. That’s a no brainer in terms of the biggest fight you could potentially make.
“I still think he should still fight Tom Aspinall. I don’t know which is really a bigger fight. I know he’s a bigger star, but Jon Jones is big enough to carry whatever fight that he comes back to. If it’s Tom Aspinall, he’s fighting for the heavyweight title now and that makes it as big of a fight as if he’s fighting Alex Pereira just to be fighting Alex Pereira, I think.”
Add to that, Brown believes long term the UFC doesn’t actually risk as much by putting Aspinall in a fight against Jones because of the dreadful state of the heavyweight division currently.
Aspinall already doesn’t have many options for potential opposition with Gane almost getting his title shot by default off a one-fight win streak, which was a highly controversial decision over Alexander Volkov.
“If I’m the UFC, personally, I take the risk with Tom,” Brown said. “If Tom loses, the heavyweight division basically already sucks. He loses, it sucks a little bit more and Jon Jones is so great that we can’t find a heavyweight to beat him either. If Tom wins, it brings an entirely new spark to the heavyweight division and the heavyweights are the sellers. Every combat sport in history, everybody wants to watch the heavyweights.
“Tom, if he’s able to go out and secure a victory, he is the baddest man on the planet. He also happens to be well spoken, a good dude that is able to stay out of trouble, so far at least, gets the job done and it’s a fairly marketable guy. I think there’s more upside.”
Perhaps the biggest ‘X’ factor in all this is Jones, who showed little interest in facing Aspinall when he was still holding onto the UFC heavyweight title.
Maybe that’s changed now with the potential for a slot on the White House card, which is directly what Jones referenced as a driving factor for him when he decided to end his brief retirement from the sport.
But there’s a world where Brown sees Jones demanding Pereira and nobody else.
“You know Jon’s going to push for that,” Brown said. “He might even say if you don’t give me Alex, I don’t fight at the White House, f*ck ya’ll. Go get Conor and Michael [Chandler]. He might do that. Jon’s that type of guy.”
