Josh Thomson Pushes Back on Joe Rogan’s Claim About Jon Jones vs. Alex Pereira Superfight

Josh Thomson isn’t entirely on board with Joe Rogan’s claim that a fight between Jon Jones and Alex Pereira would be “the biggest fight in human history.”

During a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan speculated about the possibility of a matchup between Pereira (13-3 MMA, 10-2 UFC) and the recently retired former UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones (28-1 MMA, 22-1 UFC) taking place in 2026.

“The big money fight is Alex and Jon Jones at the White House,” Rogan told Andrew Schulz. “Are you f**king kidding me? “Catch weight. Make it a 225 (pound) fight. You don't have to be for a title. Make it the ‘bad mother***er’ upper edition. The Jon Jones vs. Alex Pereira fight will probably be the biggest fight in human history.”

Given that current UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall will likely face Ciryl Gane again following their anticlimactic no contest at UFC 321, the door could be open for Jones to return against Pereira in 2026, should he decide to come out of retirement.

Former UFC welterweight Josh Thomson agrees that a matchup between “Bones” and “Poatan” would be massive, but he believes it wouldn’t come close to the infamous clash between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 in 2019.

“As far as an MMA fight (is concerned) you still have Conor and Khabib,” Thomson said on his podcast Weighing In. “That fight did 2. 5 million views, 2. 6 million views. I don't think that this fight would even scratch that. Maybe back in in the pay-per-view days like when it was doing well, but I don't even think it would have done that those numbers. There's just too much animosity. Conor was a huge star.

“Jon's never been one to deliver. Now are we just talking in terms of the excitement of it? Are we talking (about how) at this moment it’s the biggest fight to make? There's no other fight that you can make that will get this much pop at this moment in the sport.

“But to say that it's the biggest fight in human history…I'm gonna have to disagree. But look, I'm not saying that I'm not excited for this fight. I'm absolutely excited for this fight. If you want to put this fight together, I would love to see it.”