Jones Floats Pereira Superfight Before Retiring
Before UFC 309 in November 2024, then-heavyweight champion Jon Jones said he would consider vacating his title to pursue a superfight with light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira, potentially for the BMF belt. It was a proposal, not a booked fight. The intervening years changed the context: Jones defended his title against Stipe Miocic, later retired, and has since described a return as unlikely while leaving the door open.
What Jones said before UFC 309
Jones said that a fight with Pereira appealed to him for its financial and legacy value, and that he would relinquish the heavyweight championship if needed to make the matchup happen. He floated the BMF title as a possible prize. The remarks came before his scheduled defense against Miocic and did not amount to a UFC announcement or agreement.
Jones then defeated Miocic by third-round TKO at UFC 309 on November 16, 2024. The UFC’s official event report records the result.
Retirement changed the picture
In June 2025, UFC CEO Dana White announced that Jones had retired and that Tom Aspinall would become heavyweight champion. In October 2026, Jones said he was more than likely done fighting, while adding that he was leaving the door open; reporting also noted that he remained in the UFC’s anti-doping testing pool. No Jones–Pereira bout has been announced.
Those later developments do not erase Jones’s 2024 comments, but they show why the Pereira matchup remains a past proposal rather than an active booking. The UFC has also since recorded other changes to the heavyweight title picture.
Sources: MMA Junkie on Jones’s Pereira proposal; UFC 309 results; UFC announcement of Jones’s retirement; October 2026 reporting on Jones’s future.
