UFC: Jon Jones blew his last shot at being a role model – it’s time to become the pantomime villain
- Light heavyweight champion Jones’ out-of-Octagon antics are getting tiresome for MMA fans
- ‘Bones’ has used up all his second chances – UFC president Dana White should just position him as the promotion’s ultimate heel
It seems with every pure or wholesome moment Jones (26-1) offers comes a devastating crash-back-to-Earth humbling, or vice versa. Seasoned MMA fans will have felt this all before with “Bones”, the sport’s greatest-ever martial artist but arguably worst-ever role model.
“What’s up everybody? It’s your boy Jon ‘Bones’ Jones just reaching out to let you all know that I love you very much. Hope you’re keeping your head held high, you owe it to yourself, too,” said the 32-year-old light heavyweight king, with his trademark smile.
“This world can be a very difficult place and sometimes it’s going to present us with some very hard fights. We owe it to ourselves – to have faith, to be positive, and remember that attitude and mentality is everything.
“No-one’s going to feel sorry for us at a time like this – we owe it to ourselves to just not feel sorry for ourselves and do everything we can every day to smile, to do our part, and right now our part is to stay home, stay happy, stay positive, keep a positive outlook. I promise you we will get through this thing. Strong faith guys. We are all unbroken. We got this.”
It is uncanny how Jones’ words of wisdom – often deriving from his deep Christian faith – tend to come back to bite him or, at the very least, get made into memes by Twitter’s merciless MMA trolls.
But there is no room for Jones’ “God is testing me” rhetoric this time because the coronavirus is hindering us all. Having told us to “stay home” just a minute ago, Jones was found by local Albuquerque police drunkenly sitting in his car with the engine rumbling at 1am. MMA Fighting reported he had a black handgun and a bottle of Jorge Masvidal’s trademark Recuerdo mescal with him. No proof of insurance, either.
The point of this is not to snarl at Jones as we stand on the supposed moral high ground. It is not even about whether UFC president Dana White will forgive the promotion’s youngest-ever champion and record-holder for title defences (he will). It’s about where Jones goes from here after serving his punishment; we are all getting tired of the same shtick.
This is not even his first DWI, by the way. Jones secured one in 2012 and has committed far worse sport- and non-sport-related sins. He was involved in an inexcusable hit-and-run incident in 2015, causing the stripping of his light heavyweight title and a six-month ban.
He has tested positive for cocaine and performance-enhancing drugs multiple times, which saw him stripped and suspended again in 2016 and 2017, respectively. And to top it all off, he was charged with battery last year for allegedly slapping a waitress in a strip club.
White has bigger problems to handle right now than Jones. “Bones” has been given several second chances to correct his mistakes and milk that whole “redemption” narrative.
Perhaps it is time for a deliberate shake-up in Jones’ martial arts persona. If he has done dirty in the past and has just proven once again that he does not learn from his mistakes, why act like things will change?
That way the casuals and haters unite in desperation to tune in and see him lose, while the fans – or what’s left of them – can continue to tweet essays on why “it’s about what you do inside the Octagon, not outside”.
Meanwhile, the light heavyweight division would have a true pantomime villain at the helm.
Proven contenders such as Reyes and Thiago Santos will try their luck and, as seen time and again, Jones will still bring in big pay-per-view buy rates – and White can go back to smiling.
