Alex Pereira shares definitive prediction for potential Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall fight, says he’ll be keeping a close eye on the match-up 

Alex Pereira is gearing up to take on Magomed Anakalev in the main event of UFC 313 in a bid to secure the fourth defense of his light heavyweight throne. Before the matchup was confirmed, Ankalaev and interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall seemingly stayed on the fringes while Pereira and Jon Jones teased a potential matchup.

Jones, who has been dismissive of Aspinall's claim to the undisputed heavyweight throne, has reiterated on numerous occasions that he fancies a legacy showdown against 'Poatan' at this point in his career. Nevertheless, the UFC went on to orchestrate the fight between Pereira and Ankalaev, while CEO Dana White recently confirmed that a title unification bout between Jones and Aspinall is apparently in motion.

Previewing the matchup during a recent interview with Bloody Elbow, Pereira said:

"I think Jon Jones will win. I won't be necessarily studying the fight.I'll watch it closely. Obviously, any havyweight fight is exciting, and you put in Jon Jones and Aspinall. So I think that's a very exciting fight."

Shedding light on potentially training with Jones, Pereira added:

"To be honest, I don't think that makes as much sense anymore. Back when I said I wanted to fight at heavyweight, people had already connected the dots and mentioned Jon Jones, so that’s something being speculated, even if it’s just by the fans. I would want to go and train with him now, but if we end up fighting, people will start saying all kinds of things about it. So, I don’t think it would make sense now. But if we were to fight one day and then train together afterward, that would make sense."

Check out Alex Pereira's comments below (8:50):

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Alex Pereira dismisses travel concerns ahead of UFC 313

Alex Pereira is unfazed by criticism from the likes of Daniel Cormier regarding his travel schedule leading up to UFC 313.

Despite concerns about his training, Pereira continues traveling, recently spending time in Australia and Korea. He was in Sydney for UFC 312 to corner Sean Strickland, which led to Cormier questioning his preparation. Pereira dismissed the concerns during the aforementioned interview and said:

"I took basically my whole team down there, I had eight people in Australia with me and we knew exactly what to do so we had it all very well planned out. A lot of people are talking about the traveling and all of the trips. Maybe it’s not the ideal situation [to train]. But I feel like I’m very experienced with that, and I’ve done this a million times to be honest.”