UFC heavyweight fighter Jairzinho Rozenstruik thinks the chatter around Jon Jones vs Stipe Miocic is unfair. He thinks inactive fighters such as Stipe and Jon should not have the opportunity to fight for the UFC interim heavyweight championship. He wants regular participants of the division to have the chance instead.
The current UFC Heavyweight Champion Francis Ngannou is out of commission for a significant period of time. Ahead of his fight against Ciryl Gane at UFC 270 in January, Ngannou suffered a knee injury which needed surgery. Ngannnou went under the knife after the event and would require time to recover.
On top of that, Francis had a lot of disputes with UFC regarding his contract. Things became really heated between him and the UFC. Ngannou even threatened to quit the promotion if his demands were not met. Hence, Ngannou is not expected to compete inside the Octagon for a significant period of time.
As a result, the company wanted to book an interim heavyweight title fight to keep the division moving. It has been rumoured for a while now that the two candidates for the title fight are Stipe Miocic and Jon Jones.
Jairzinho Rozenstruik: ‘Stipe Miocic and Jon Jones are not deserving of a title shot’
During his recent appearance on The MMA Hour, Jairzinho Rozenstruik gave his thoughts on Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic possibly fighting for the interim gold. He sounded very displeased as he feels it discourages the fighters who are active and fight at regular intervals. Naming Curtis Blaydes as an example, Rozenstruik said,
“It’s unfair [for Jon jones and Stipe Miocic to fight for an interim title] compared to us [active heavyweights]. We’ve been fighting. We should get a Chance. Think somebody who should definitely get a Chance is Curtis Blaydes.” (h/t via The MMA Hour)
To Bigi Boy‘s point, Blaydes has been much more active than both Jones and Miocic combined. As the fans know, Jon has not fought since his controversial title defence against Dominic Reyes in early 2020. Since then, he has gone through a lot of legal and personal troubles which have delayed his heavyweight debut.
On the other hand, Stipe’s last fight came against Francis Ngannou which saw him losing the belt on March 27, 2021. So that means Jon has not fought in over 2 years, while Miocic has spent more than a year outside the Octagon. Meanwhile, Curtis Blaydes has competed 4 times since Jones’ last fight and 2 times since Stipe’s last fight.
Hence, Jairzinho does have a valid point. Active fighters such as Blaydes, Derrick Lewis and himself deserve more opportunities at the top of the division. It is very evident that the reason behind UFC going with Jon and Stipe is the fact that both of them are big stars and they bring eyeballs to the sport.
View this post on Instagram
As for Rozenstruik, he is set to fight Alexander Volkov at this weekend’s UFC Fight Night main event. He is currently sitting at 8th in the division. Hence, a win over Volkov will push him a lot closer to the upper end of the weight class,
