Shogun Rua’s camp explains turning down Jon Jones fight – UFC News
Recently, the Ultimate Fighting Champion has been going through events and happenings that no one ever imagined. First, title challenger Dan Henderson suffered a leg injury, which forced him to withdraw from UFC 151. Later on, Jon Jones declined a fight
offer against Henderson’s replacement Chael Sonnen.
Similarly, for UFC 152, Shogun Rua was scheduled to fight against Jon Jones but the former declined. Then, a fight against Lyoto Machida was declined by Jon Jones. Now, Jones is scheduled to face Vitor Belfort at UFC 152, which takes place on September 22.
Previously, it was unclear as to why Shogun Rua opted out of the fight, since he has always been among the top contenders for the title and he was always been wanting it. However, yesterday, Shogun’s camp revealed the reasons that impeded the Rua from pursuing
the showdown.
“We were in Sao Paulo and my phone rang about midnight. It was Lorenzo's (Lorenzo Fertitta is a partner in the UFC). Lorenzo was on another call, so I talked to him like half hour later. He offered me a rematch against Jon Jones because Lyoto had declined
it and asked me to give him an answer in ten minutes. I hung up and Mauricio was there with me. We talked and called Dida in Curitiba and we got to a conclusion we should accept the rematch, but only if Shogun had a couple of months to train and it would mean
a fight later in October or in November. I said that to Lorenzo but he said there was no time because Jon Jones's fight is on September 22nd,” read the statement from Shogun’s camp.
The statement further read that Lorenzo was unable to give them the time to prepare and he understood that on such a short notice it was not possible for Shogun to set up a training camp. However, Mauricio has accepted a fight against Jones only if he gets
sufficient time to run at least a two-month training camp.
Jones will now be fighting Vitor Belfort at UFC 152 for the light heavyweight title.
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