Jon Jones made a big announcement recently. Did you hear? He’s coaching opposite Nate Diaz on some MMA-themed Russian reality show. Because, sure, that’s the move we’ve all been waiting for him to make.
Here the UFC heavyweight champion is a few days ago, on the back of somebody’s motorcycle in Thailand, looking like a guy who’s not exactly living the ascetic life of martial arts monk, laser-focused on his next fight.
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Now here he is just this week, doing an Instagram live while riding another motorcycle and responding to those who inevitably show up anywhere he goes on social media to accuse him of running from a fight with UFC interim heavyweight champ Tom Aspinall.
“I’ve got people in the chat calling me a duck,” Jones says in the video. “Meanwhile I’m living my absolute best life. I don’t know if it’s considered ducking when you’re living good. I don’t think it works like that.”
Actually, yeah it does. It totally works like that. That is, in fact, exactly how it works. When you’re the champion with the single most disputed title in the UFC and you avoid a fight with the other champion in that very disputed title picture, that is called ducking. It doesn’t become some whole other thing just because you’re having fun while doing it.
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Granted, it’s risky to read too much into the version of anyone’s life that they present to us on social media. This is especially true with Jones, who loves a good troll job. It’s not out of the question that he might continue acting like he won’t take the Aspinall fight right up until the moment it’s announced.
But just going by outward appearances? It doesn’t look good. Consider his recent Instagram post, wherein he showed off the newly remodeled “wall of victory” in his house. He noted that he’d framed and hung up all the posters from all his fights, with the exception of the poster from his most recent win over Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 late last year. That one would go in the perfect final spot, left empty for that very purpose.
Notice anything about that wall? How about the fact that, once you add that UFC 309 poster in the bottom right corner, there’s no more space left? As in, nowhere to add the poster from whatever future event might finally give us Jones vs. Aspinall.
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Again, maybe he’s just messing with us. But it sure looks like he’s putting one last trophy in the case and then locking the door and throwing away the key. Does that seem to you like a guy who has plans for a fight coming up soon?
We know Aspinall wants the fight. He’s said it. A bunch of times. Jones has been a lot more intentionally non-committal, both before and after the Miocic fight. Up to a point it was entirely possible to believe that it was all a negotiating strategy. Force the UFC to add more zeroes to the check in order to make him an offer he can’t refuse. That sort of thing.
But now? People flood to his mentions to call him out for ducking Aspinall and all he can say is that he’s having a very nice time, thank you.
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What happened to the other Jon Jones, the who would never have stood for this? That guy couldn’t stand for anyone to even think they might beat him in a fight. He was driven by a relentless focus on legacy.
Now he seems to want to hang the posters and call it a career. He doesn’t even mind that, if he goes out like this, the decision to duck Aspinall will absolutely be part of his legacy. Whatever else we say about Jones and his greatness over the years, we will also say that he took his belt and went home rather than take the biggest fight available to him at heavyweight.
Could he live with that? Does he really want to try? Or does he think somehow that the longer he lets us think he’s running away from the fight, the more grateful we’ll be once he finally turns and sprints straight into it?
If Jones wants to be done, that’s his right. But he should at least come out and say so. Let the UFC heavyweight division move on. Let Aspinall plan for his future. Let the rest of us get some closure.
But as long as he’s still the champ, he should know that it doesn’t matter how fast or how far he rides that motorcycle. The persistent chants of “duck, duck, duck” will follow him everywhere.
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