The main
Ultimate Fighting Championship promoter is doing a bit of
promoting ahead of the upcoming tentpole event.
UFC President and CEO Dana White has often stated that he feels
Jon
Jones is the greatest mixed martial artist of all time. He has
stuck to that notion so strongly that he has tried on multiple
occasions to get Jones’ disqualification loss to Matt Hamill
overturned to a no contest. His reasoning is that Jones should have
finished the fight before the illegal strikes landed, and that
referee Steve Mazzagatti failed to intervene when he should have
stepped in. The argument was also made that since 12-to-6 elbows
have been legalized, past fights ending via those strikes should be
changed ex post facto.
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The top spot on White’s MMA all-timer pedestal may be changing
depending on upcoming events, according to him in an interview with
Forbes on Friday.
The organizer went on to declare that should Alex
Pereira beat Ciryl Gane
to claim the interim heavyweight belt on June 14’s
UFC White House card, he will have done something no one in the
UFC has accomplished: win a title in three separate divisions. This
kind of achievement, according to White, is one that could make
“Poatan” the greatest fighter to have stepped in a cage.
Greatest of all time
“You got Pereira possibly winning his third world title,” White
expressed with excitement. “If he wins the third world title that
night, he jumps over Jon Jones and
becomes the greatest of all time.”
“Poatan” already achieved history by shattering the record for the
fewest UFC bouts to win not one but two titles. Pereira picked up
his first from Israel
Adesanya at 185 pounds, dropped it in the rematch and moved up
to light heavyweight to punch out Jiri
Prochazka and claim that throne as well. He has since vacated
that strap to move up to the largest weight class to try to become
a champ there.