Dana White has given up on Jon Jones.
Dana White possesses many qualities uncommon among promoters. Perhaps the most noticeable of which is that he never hesitates to badmouth his own fighters. A high profile target of his criticism has been former UFC Lightheavyweight champion Jon Jones. Dana has expressed a mountain of criticism over the years, earlier in 2017 calling him the biggest waste of talent in the history of sports. Currently, Jones is preparing for his hearing over a positive drug test with the California Athletic Commission in December.
White went on the Jim Rome Show and didn’t pull any punches with a psychological analysis of Jon’s well-documented reckless behavior.
“I don’t know. He’s not a ‘just about the money’ type guy. He’s really not that kind of guy. I just think that Jon likes to party and he’s a guy that likes to go out and have fun and do whatever it is that he does, and I think the money and the fame made it a thousand times worse.
“This guy couldn’t control himself and would completely go off the deep end. I’m not sitting here acting like Mr. Holier-than-thou, we’ve all gone and had fun and probably partied a little too much here and there, but he consistently, consistently kept doing it. Even when he would completely f**k up, he would pull himself together and come out and completely f**k up again. Even this last time when he came back, fans forgave and he was the most popular fighter and everybody wanted to see this guy succeed, and he did it again. It’s just unbelievable.”
Jones is facing a four-year suspension from competition after this most recent test failure. He previously failed a test just prior to a planned fight with Lightheavyweight champion Daniel Cormier at UFC 200, which was met with a year suspension.
Maybe more concerning than the test failures are Jones criminal issues. In 2012, he was arrested on DWI charges in upstate New York and in 2015 plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received 18 months probation. Next year, Jon was arrested for violating his probation after being pulled over for drag racing. He would go on to accept a plea deal in this case, again avoiding jail time. White says these problems are more cautionary than the USADA failures.
“Even worse than that, this guy was looking at jail time. This judge gave him another shot and this guy was looking at some serious jail time and a lot of bad stuff and that still didn’t wake him up. If that’s not a wake-up call, you’re unfixable.”
Yesterday Jones posted a video of him striking mitts on Instagram. The caption reads “Day 1. Pick Yourself Up and Start Again”.
How do you think the Jon Jones story will end?
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