Anthony Smith doesn’t see UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones getting up for a fight against Sergei Pavlovich.
Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) is expected to make his first title defense against Stipe Miocic LATER this year, but waiting in the wings is streaking knockout artist Pavlovich (18-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC), who scored his sixth straight first-round KO when he stopped Curtis Blaydes in the UFC Fight Night 222 headliner.
In former two-time champion Miocic (20-4 MMA, 14-4 UFC), Jones would be facing the consensus greatest heavyweight of all time. But if he gets past Miocic, Smith doubts Jones will end up facing Pavlovich.
“He wants to beat the greatest of all time at heavyweight, and I totally get that,” Smith told Low Kick MMA. “But after that, then what is there? At some point in time, Jon’s going to be like, ‘Man, I want to do some other sh*t you know, something else I want to do with my life,’ because I think about that sometimes, too. I’m going to be 35 this summer and I’m by no means talking about retirement, but there is a light at the end of this tunnel and it’s closer than it used to be.
“Jon’s a little bit older than I am, so I’m sure that he’s having those same (conversations): ‘All right, this is a lot of fun and I’m going to keep doing this for a little bit,’ but there’s other stuff I’m sure that Jon wants to do, and after that, how excited is Jon really going to be for Sergei Pavlovich?”
Instead, Smith suggested Pavlovich face former interim champion Ciryl Gane (11-2 MMA, 8-2 UFC), who’s coming off a quick title loss to Jones in March at UFC 285.
“I would love to see Sergei vs. Ciryl Gane, Stipe vs. Jon, and we’ll see what happens,” Smith added.
