The retirement of Jon Jones of mixed martial arts has felt more and more inevitable during this year. And yet it has always blinded the world of MMA when the CEO of the UFC, Dana White, announced the news on Saturday.
Months of speculation on the future of Jones have reached a brutal conclusion in Bakou, Azerbaijan, of all places, where the UFC organized a fighting evening. White informed the world nonchalantly informed that the greatest mixed martial artist of all time had withdrawn, ending a combat of unification of a potential heavy title between him and Tom Aspinall.
“Jon Jones called us last night and retired,” White told a group of journalists when Jones were questioned directly. “Jon Jones is officially retired.”
To begin with, what a strange way to announce the conclusion of the greatest career in UFC history.
It was the full opposite of the retirement of the former UFC CHUCK LIDDELL LIDDEll heavyweight champion in 2010. The UFC brought Liddell to a press conference in the Hall of the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where he had the opportunity to make the announcement himself and answer questions from the media.
The International UFC Combat Week is this weekend in Las Vegas, a perfect opportunity to give Jones the same opportunity and the same spotlights. Why was he not? It might have something to do with the feeling Around the retirement of Jones, which is undeniably a “disappointment”.
The fact that Jones retires from the UFC as a heavyweight champion and moved away from the unification fight against the interim champion Aspinall – which has the potential to be one of the greatest fights in the history of the UFC – is so disappointing. Think about how long this sport has waited to see Jones switch to heavy goods vehicles, to take up this challenge after having beaten almost all the light heavyweights that there was to beat throughout his reign of 15 combat games. The intrigue of a truck race has teased fans yearsOnly so that it finally happens and to be a little a farce. A fight against the vacant title against an opponent surpassed in Ciryl Gane in 2023, and only one defense against a Miocic stipe, 42, 42, last year.
Now, here is the game whose criticism of fans and jones probably do not want to speak: he does not owe the world the Aspinall fight. He owes nothing to the world. No one should blame him for a single decision he has made in recent years concerning the fighting he has accepted because they were all in his best interest as champion. Any reasonable fighter would have made the same choices.
He arrived in Cherry Pick which path he would take for a heavyweight championship, and he chose the path of the slightest resistance with gane. Then we offered him a very lucrative lay-up in the form of Miocic (no lack of respect in Miocic, but he was Basically, a retired fighter at that time), and Jones took it. As he should.
The real failure, however, has been the last seven months. He refused to retire, but also refused to take the only fight that had a meaning against Aspinall, and almost faithfully banged his nose to the entire Fans of the UFC fans while refusing.
The consequence of this refusal is that people will remember this feeling of “total disappointment” and question its inheritance, which was already complicated by legal problems, multiple arrests and drug screening tests. Even if the news of retirement breaks on Saturday, the newspaper Albuquerque reported criminal charges deposited against Jones on June 17 for having pretended to have left an accident in February.
But in the octagon, his files, his work body and his inheritance are untouchable. No one should say that his combat curriculum vitae is ruined for refusing to fight Aspinall. But because this saga lasted so long and has reached such a disappointing result, there is an additional sentence to the MMA inheritance of Jones. And I think it will be permanently here: “Jones was the greatest fighter who ever lived. And he didn’t want to fight Tom Aspinall.”
Today, I officially announce my retirement from the UFC. This decision comes after a lot of reflection, and I want to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude for the trip that I have experienced over the years.
From the first time I entered the octagon, my goal was …
– Jonny Meat (@jonnybones) June 22, 2025
Jones published a retirement message on social networks after White’s comments, but he deserved better than that. He deserves his own press conference in Las Vegas this week in the head of the UFC 317, because only one sentence pronounced by White at a press conference in Baku is not a sufficient explanation. One day when Jones’s career ended, we should talk about all the magical moments he had inside the octagon, not the only fight he did not take.
