I'm starting to feel like retirement announcements from UFC fighters just don't mean anything anymore. It wasn't even 10 days since Jon Jones announced his retirement from MMA that he was announcing that he was coming back. This makes me think less of the guy but also kind of begs the question of could it at least be possible that UFC and in particular, Dana White, are the real problem here and not the fighters themselves.
src
Jones has been one of the most controversial fighters of all time... he also just happens to perhaps be the best ever at it.
his past is checkered with blemishes and if you can think of some sort of offense, he has probably done it. From abusing the rules with "accidental eye pokes", to doing foot-stomps and knee down kicks (both legal but frowned upon), to losing his cool at pressers, to getting multiple DUI's, to crashing a car and killing someone in the process... Jones has done it all.
But in the meantime it was still always a joy to see him fight because love him or hate him, he always put on a good show.
src
When Jones came back to UFC the last time after leaving light-heavyweight it was over a year of anticipation. He re-entered a pretty weak heavyweight division and it wasn't a very big surprise when he easily won the championship... then just sat on it for a long period of time.
Accusations were flying, and people speculated that Jones was being greedy and holding out for a bigger payday before accepting any fight contracts. The fighters DO have some sort of ability to pick and choose who they fight and they can never be forced to fight, but it was taking Jones so long that the general opinion started to shift that he wasn't being greedy so much as he was afraid of losing to Tom Aspinall.
Other fighters would have had their belt stripped of them after not defending it when they had been away for so long that an interim champion had to be declared, but not Jones... his name is too big. But i guess the pressure and rumors got to be too much for the 37 year old when out of the blue he announced his official retirement. It was a real surprise to everyone in the sports world.
But then, just a week after "retiring" he was back at training camp and while this isn't some sort of official statement of what someone plans to do, it does seem a bit strange that you would be right back at something you just elected to retire from. Maybe Jon just doesn't really know what else to do?
Who knows what the hell is going on there but now Jones has re-entered the drug-testing pool of UFC and you don't do that unless you intend to fight.
Some might say that this was because of the silly proposition that there be a fight at the White House to celebrate Independence Day next year but Jones hasn't said anything other than a few words on a Tweet about that.
Jones is so unpredictable in what it is that he does though that I suspect that it really could be bad blood between him and Dana White that goes all the way back to UFC 151. Jones refused to fight replacement fighter Chael Sonnen 3 days before the fight was to take place and because of that, the entire card had to be abandoned. It was the first time that a UFC event was ever cancelled at that point. Some (me) would argue that Sonnen didn't deserve the fight and that is what Jones claimed at the time as well, but the thing with Jon is that Jon is going to look out for Jon all the time.
"Retirement" has become a bargaining chip in UFC as of late and I don't like it. Over the past 5 years we have had so many people retire and then come back, then retire again, and in some instances double un-retire.
I don't really understand the mind of a professional fighter messing with people like this and often think that it isn't always about the money. As has been exhibited by many retired fighters in the past, once they go out to pasture they are faced with not having anything to do and they go through a crisis of conscious about whether or not they still have it in them. They miss it and often end up depressed without it.
Is Jones that guy? He certainly seems mentally unstable at times so it could be the case.
I just wonder how excited people are going to be if and when Jones does eventually decide to fight? This isn't the first time he has done this to us and people are probably already well beyond the point of being willing to give Jones the benefit of the doubt.
Whether or not him and Dana White really dislike one another and this is a big part of it could very well be true as well. Both of them are pretty tight-lipped about how they really feel about one another.
For me, the worst thing that could possibly happen here would be for Jones to start courting a boxing match with Jake Paul.