Jon Jones is firing back at the UFC after Dana White claimed “Bones” was never seriously in the running to be booked for the White House card.
That card, now officially dubbed Freedom Fights 250 (after the 250th birthday of America), was revealed during UFC 326, and it’s … perfectly fine I guess, if you’re not expecting the baddest card in history — something a certain someone suggested more than once over the past several months it would be.
The main event features Ilia Topuria unifying the lightweight
title against interim champ Justin Gaethje, while Alex Pereira goes for the interim heavyweight title against Ciryl Gane in the co-main. There’s a lot of obvious disappointment that Pereira isn’t fighting Jones, who has been campaigning for the fight at the White House for months. According to White, that match-up was never a serious consideration.
“Never, ever, ever, which I told you guys a hundred thousand times, was Jon Jones ever even remotely in my mind to fight at the White House,” White said at the UFC 326 post-fight press conference. “Some guy with Meta Glasses filmed him talking about his hips, that his hips are so bad. And I don’t know if you guys saw that flag football game where he can barely run. Jon Jones retired because of his hips. He’s got arthritis in his hips. Apparently, doctors say he should have hip replacement.”
“Forgot that, on top of all the other reasons that I wouldn’t,” White continued. “The Jon Jones thing is bulls–t. I’m not saying they weren’t talking to Jon Jones and that Jon Jones wasn’t interested in the fight. What was even crazier is Jon Jones came out and was like, ‘I’m in negotiations right now for the White House fight an hour after I had already sent a text to his lawyer saying, ‘Never gonna happen ever.'”
Asked if it was fair to say Jon Jones was retired, White replied, “Very fair.”
That didn’t sit well with Jones, who took to X (formerly Twitter) and did some very interesting tweet-and-deletes.
“So all of this negotiating was complete bulls–t, is that what you want me to agree to publicly?” Jones wrote. “Make this make sense.”
“I’m released from the UFC?!!” another read.
Is Jon Jones released from the UFC? Considering his promoter has said he’s retired, it’s an interesting question to ask … perhaps in a court of law, which would allow Jones to go out on the free market and get more than the $30 million he reportedly almost got for a scuttled Tom Aspinall fight. Perhaps for a Francis Ngannou fight on Netflix?
One thing is for sure: Jones does not agree with White’s assessment of how this White House non-booking played out. According to White, Jon was never in the running to be on the card. But in-between that and calling Jones’ teases ‘bulls–t’ he admitted UFC was indeed ‘talking’ to Jones, and it was only yesterday that White finally told Jones’ lawyer he’d ‘never’ be on the card. Jones now wants to know if UFC was negotiating in bad faith the entire time. Legit question, we’d say.
Has there ever been another promoter in the history of combat sports that doesn’t want his biggest stars to fight for him? First Ronda Rousey, now Jon Jones. We’ll see if the UFC is capable of getting Conor McGregor back into the cage, as foaming at the mouth as “The Notorious” is to do so. We have our doubts, which leads us to ask: what the hell is going on?
