Jon Jones is one of those fighters that a lot of people used to like a lot, but then they started to seriously dislike him when he started doing a lot of talking and not a lot of fighting. I think the pinnacle of his popularity was at a time when he was poking people like Alexander Gustaffson and Daniel Cormier in the eyeballs. But for the most part the dude has been problematic, chasing money, making unfulfilled promises, and of course ducking a fight with Tom Aspinall in order to protect his undefeated legacy.
But now it appears as though the winds of change are blowing in the direction of a main card that has Jon Jones vs Alex Pereira as the headliner and well, nobody can really complain about that.
Now there is nothing official about this but the various kind of hints at promotion are enough for me to already believe it is going to happen. The chance encounter at other sporting events where these two are pretending to have a showdown of sorts, the fact that Dana White has been completely quiet about it and dodging the question when it is asked rather than outright denying it and the biggest thing? Alex Pereira quietly vacated his light-heavyweight championship belt in the past few weeks.
I don't know why he would do that anyway because it doesn't seem like it would be necessary in order to make this fight happen but perhaps Dana is trying to kill two birds with one stone and get this superfight arranged while at the same time trying to do something, anything, to save the wildly boring and downright stupid heavyweight division.
There is one big problem for Alex at heavyweight and that is that despite the fact that he is a beast, much of that just might come from the fact that he is actually a natural light-heavyweight or even lighter than that. These guys train different that the rest of us and for all the fellas (and ladies) out there that think that gaining 10 lbs of weight is no problem just keep in mind we are talking about 10 GOOD lbs of weight, not pizza, wings, beer and sofa lbs. Doing something like this is immensely difficult and if the fight at the White House is taking place at heavyweight, Pereira might be a lot more sluggish than the assassin that we are accustomed to seeing in the octagon.
One thing is for sure though. Jones is going to have to get the eye-gouging out of his arsenal. There is a lot of focus on this ever since Aspinall had to drop out of a headlining fight from such a move and Jon Jones is the most famous eye poker in the land. It would be an absolute disaster if the White House card ended up getting marred by a guy that hasn't fought in a long time coming back and spoiling the main event by doing something dirty that people hate him for.
Jones is also a very problematic person. The only reason why this dude hasn't been to jail is likely because of the protection he is afforded by the UFC and the amount of money that he has brought to them over the years. But I do want to put something to rest: NO, Jon Jones (the fighter) did not kill a woman named Bridget in a car crash. So many people think that is the case but what really happened was someone with the same name did that and it got attributed to him. He has been involved in multiple DUI's though yet he still has a license... go ahead and try to do that yourself if you will (don't really.) He has been in a lot of trouble though throughout his career but he seems a bit bulletproof as far as consequences are concerned.
Given his track record with the law, you can be assured that the media will highlight this and somehow make it political.
None of this is official though folks but there are a lot of people that are pretty well connected, including Ariel Helwani (can't stand that guy), that are talking about it and when that happens I feel as though it is normally because they have been given specific instructions to start the hype train before the official word goes out.
Next up though, will Conor McGregor be ready to join in the fray as well? Time will tell