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| Jon Jones at UFC 235 Pre-Fight Press Conference Image courtesy of mmanews.com |
Jon Jones. The man who most would call the Greatest of All-Time in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). He has been completely unstoppable since entering the UFC. However, he's also had some staining events throughout his career.
Jones, who has an extensive wrestling background, got into Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) in April 2008. He later joined the UFC in August of 2008. Jones comes from a family with a vast amount of athletic ability. He has two brothers who play in the NFL and each one has won a Super Bowl championship.
Jon was a star from the moment that he stepped foot in the octagon. He won five of his first six professional fights by either technical knockout (TKO) or knockout (KO). Jon had his first fight in the UFC at 21-years-old, which he won by Unanimous Decision.
In 2011, the roller coaster which is Jones' professional career began to take off and it hasn't stopped going since. Jones won the Light Heavyweight title for the first time in his career in a fight against Mauricio Rua during March of that year. He set a record, which still stands to this day, of being the youngest champion in UFC history. The following year, in 2012, Jon had his first run-in with the police since he had been in the UFC. Jones was charged with his first of what would be two DUI/DWI offenses. He plead guilty to the charges, but didn't face any backlash from the UFC...this time.
Jones would stay out of trouble for the next four years until 2015, when he starts to get in trouble and seems to not be able to stay out of trouble.
He was involved in a felony hit and run in April of 2015, which led to him being stripped of his championship belt and suspended by the UFC for a year. Once Jones came back in 2016, he didn't miss a step. He was able to defeat Ovince Saint Preux for the interim championship belt, setting up a rematch with Daniel Cormier to unify the championship belts.
Leading up to the fight with DC, Jones failed a drug test by testing positive for multiple banned substances. He got pulled from the event, stripped of his interim belt, and suspended again for another year.
"All of that work is going to go down the drain if you don't get your life together," said Aldric Warner, host of Yea That's A Fact and Fight Dialogue podcasts. "It's very overshadowing."
Following his suspension, Jones came back to finally have his rematch with Cormier in 2017. After getting the win, news broke that Jon's pre-fight drug test came back positive for turinabol. He was stripped of his championship belt for the third time in two years and was once again suspended by the UFC.
When Jones came back from his suspension, he had a hiccup with a "positive" test for turinabol, but medical experts said that the drug has a pulsing effect. This means that the drug stays in the user's system and they can test positive for the drug even if they aren't actively taking it. Because of this, UFC 232 had to be moved from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. The Nevada Athletic Commission didn't want to license Jones to fight with a "positive" test.
Since that incident, Jones was staying clean. He fought multiple times without any incidents with his tests. He was staying out of trouble with the police...then the coronavirus shutdown came.
Less than two weeks after the lockdowns started throughout the country, Jones was back in trouble. He was arrested for DWI in Albuquerque, NM in March 2020. Among the DWI charge, he was also charged with misuse of a firearm and driving with an open container. Jones was able to get a plea deal that would drop all charges other than the DWI if he plead guilty, which he did.
"A guy like that needs to be punished," Warner said. "Obviously you need a wake up call, you need a lesson. Jon might have to do some jail time."
So far he hasn't been reprimanded by the UFC for this most recent incident, but with the extent of the lockdowns in place around the country, we may not hear of anything until people are able to travel and be around each other.
"You see many athletes go down that road," Warner said. "Like prime example, Josh Gordon for instance. Very top prolific receiver, but is constantly getting in trouble for smoking marijuana. Obviously there's an addiction there and he needs help."
It's no secret that Jones has had a rocky career, but there's no arguing that his in-the-octagon performances are second to none. He owns, or is tied for, many records in the UFC, including most title fight wins (14), most consecutive title defenses (8), and the most wins in the Light Heavyweight division (20).
He's never actually lost a fight, although some of his more recent fights could've gone either way. Jon's only loss on his record was a disqualification during a fight at the beginning of his UFC career that he was winning in dominating fashion. In the midst of a fury of shots he was landing, Jon threw a 12 to 6 elbow (straight up and down motion connecting to the head) and the other fighter wasn't able to continue after the ref called for a short stoppage.
If Jon stays on this path he's currently living, it's only a matter of time before his life outside of fighting is what will derail his fighting career. It seems that Jon Jones' worst enemy is...Jon Jones.
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