For his (final?) act as a professional MMA fighter, Jon Jones once again disgraced himself. Not only did he retire after demoralizing the MMA fan base and wasting a huge stretch of Tom Aspinall’s career, but did so just as new criminal charges have been filed against him in New Mexico. While his lawyer denies Jones’s involvement in the incident, the allegations sound about as close to something Jones would do and literally has done previously.
Worse, the ending came with UFC President Dana White announcing it at the post-UFC Baku presser, which is to say the ending for a fighter who has a claim as the best to ever do it brought misery to the fans, disgrace upon himself and transpired in the most unceremonious circumstance imaginable.
To be sure, Jones is not fully responsible for this disaster. The UFC and their unwillingness to strip him sooner as well as make a pointless Stipe Miocic fight, share a great degree of the blame as well. But according to reporting from Ariel Helwani, UFC also largely met the financial demands of Jones, to which he originally found agreeable before ultimately changing his mind.
I’ll have more to say about this, but the video above was my live reaction from Saturday after receiving the news. Candidly, if there is any emotion I feel, it’s relief that suffering Jones causes to all around him has, at least for now and in this chapter, come to a close.
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