Following his very impressive victory over Vladimir Matyushenko, Jon Jones said that he is ready to take a step up in competition and take on the best guys in the division:

"Every opponent I've had are really tough guys. Right now, I'm passing these tests with flying colors. I really don't want to sound arrogant, so I've got to be careful the way I word this, but I want to fight someone who's really going to give me a really tough test. That has to be the champion or whoever. I want to fight someone who's supposedly much better than me ... so I can really step up and evolve to a different level."

"There's the champion (Mauricio 'Shogun' Rua), and he's the toughest guy right now. He's very well-rounded. He's a great striker. Just like the top three contenders. I really want to push myself against the No. 1, 2 and 3 guys now. I really feel like that needs to happen. The top three guys are the guys I'd like to fight – except for (teammate) Rashad (Evans), obviously."

Jones, who looked much bigger in this fight, said that if it wasn't a top light heavyweight contender, he wouldn't mind going up a weight class to face James Toney. The pro-boxer has recently said that he wanted to slap Jones, and it seems to have irked the admittedly sensitive 23-year-old:

"I got up to about 231 (pounds) this time around, and today I performed around 226 (pounds), so this is the heaviest I've ever performed at, and I felt as if I was just as fast,"

"Randy Couture, he bumps up to heavyweight all the time, and he always looks very impressive against the slower guy," Jones said. "And now I actually have a heavyweight that I wouldn't mind fighting. That's James Toney – 'Mr. I'm going to slap Jon in the face.' I'd bump up for that fight any day."