UFC Champ Jon Jones now targeting October return from toe injury

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Up until last week when the UFC had announced main events for their August events, there had been talk that Jon Jones' next UFC Light Heavyweight Championship fight could come in that month. Then, on Tuesday, when UFC President Dana White revealed that Georges St-Pierre vs. Johny Hendricks was being targeted for October, it seemed like a reasonable possibility that Jones could return to Toronto in September to headline the UFC 165 pay-per-view event.

However, Jones' recovery from the toe injury he suffered in April is going to take longer than he had hoped. On a new edition of UFC Tonight on Fuel TV on Tuesday, Ariel Helwani reported that Jones is also now looking at October.

"My source told me that Jon was hoping to return around the summer, but his doctor told him to slow his training because his toe wouldn't be healed," Helwani stated on the show. "Now he is shooting for a return in October. He wants to fight Alexander Gustafsson and Gustafsson wants to fight him."

There's no word on where the UFC is planning to run an event in October, but if both Jon Jones and Georges St-Pierre are available, a potential stadium show could be in order.

Penick's Analysis: There's been discussion of running at Cowboys Stadium, and there's also been the recent discussion of potentially running an event at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. I actually think the Speedway may be a likely venue if both of those title fights are available, because they're not necessarily the biggest fights that the UFC might want for Cowboys Stadium. That said, it's been a while since the UFC has run an event with two major pay-per-view players on one card, so we'll have to see what route the UFC takes here.

[Jon Jones art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]

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Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/UFC_2/article_17232.shtml

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