The Jon Jones Saga

Jon Jones wants to get paid. Plain and simple. 

The consensus GOAT of MMA recently expressed his disdain at being offered $8-10 million to fight newly crowned Heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou. Now, considering the highest payout in UFC history came at UFC 229 when Conor McGregor took home $3 million after his loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov, is Jones being unrealistic with his demands given his recent lack of PPV draw? 

Jones is of course one of the biggest names in the sport, but is this want of extortionately higher pay going to cost him his shot at cementing his legacy as the GOAT? It certainly looks like it could, considering Derrick Lewis saying he would fight Ngannou for $8 million - an amount that Jones brushed away without second thought. Lewis has been on a tear recently, knocking out top ranked contender Curtis Blaydes and aligning himself with a title shot at long last. Do not forget that Lewis has a victory over Ngannou - albeit one of the most boring wins in history - but it is still a victory. 

While a fighter voicing frustrations about their pay is nothing new, this is perhaps the most high profile case. A fight between Jones and Ngannou would do massive PPV numbers, and with fans returning to arenas in the near future, the gate would be off the charts. 

So why, when we consider potential PPV numbers, is Jones demanding and being denied a pay rise?

Here we have a tweet from Jones' Twitter account the night of UFC 260 - one that caused a fair deal of backlash. In the post-fight press conference, Dana White said: "I could sit here all day and tell you guys what show me the money means [...] You can say you want to fight somebody - but do you really want to?"

Jones quickly bit back on Twitter, stating: "I quit the light heavyweight division, literally gained a massive amount of weight. And now people are saying I'm afraid? Everyone but me claiming that I'm afraid? All I asked was to get paid."

It appears that unless this saga gets solved, we may lose out on what would be arguably the biggest fight in UFC history that has the potential to break PPV records. 

Jon Jones is prepared to step into that octagon with the hardest puncher in history - a man likened to Mike Tyson. What about that sentence deems him unworthy of a pay-rise? Despite his controversies - and there have been plenty - Jones will go down as one of the greatest of all time and deserves his pay cheque. It would be a crying shame if we were deprived of one of the biggest fights in UFC and MMA history because of pay disputes. 

~ James Eakin

Image credits: [Top] "Jon Jones won't fight Francis Ngannou for 'way too low' $8 million, but Derrick Lewis would" Mookie Alexander. Available at: https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2021/3/31/22360661/jon-jones-says-8-10-million-way-too-low-for-francis-ngannou-fight-derrick-lewis-ufc-news [Accessed April '21].

[Middle] Image available at: https://twitter.com/JonnyBones/status/1376026372607373317 [Accessed April '21].

References: UFC 260 Post-fight press conference available at: https://wwwi.youtube.com/watch?v=FKGOg_0cYR0&t=242s [Accessed April '21]

Jon Jones Twitter page available at: https://twitter.com/JonnyBones [Accessed April '21]