Jon Jones: Why I didn’t hang on to the light heavyweight title

In 2015, Jon Jones was stripped of his UFC light heavyweight championship for violating the league’s Athlete Code of Conduct policy; he’d gotten in a car accident, hitting a pregnant woman and breaking her arm, before fleeing on foot.

In 2016, he was stripped of his title again after testing positive for clomiphene and letrozole. The source of the failed anti-doping test was determined to be a tainted, bootleg, erectile dysfunction pill. 

In 2017, Jones was stripped of his title a third time after he tested positive for infinitesimally small quantities of metabolites for turinabol, which pulsed on and off and on again for an extended period. The source of those was never determined. 

Then “Bones” broke his lose-the-belt-every-year pattern, winning the vacant tile, and defending it three times. Then, for the first time, he lost the belt not via making poor choices, but by choice. He plans to move up to heavyweight, and in a recent exclusive interview with Tom Taylor for B/R, he said he’s never going back.

At this point, I’m in this sport for legacy and for the biggest-paying fights, and I just don’t think that continuing on at light heavyweight was going to do much for my legacy,” Jones explained. “The reason why I decided to vacate the light heavyweight belt and not hang onto it is that I knew my move to heavyweight was going to take a really long time. … I feel like I’ve held onto the light heavyweight championship for so long—I’ve ruined so many people’s dreams of being the light heavyweight champion—and now it’s time for someone else to have it.”

“II could have done the selfish thing and held onto it and come up with a bunch of excuses and lied to the fans and said I was going to come back down to light heavyweight and made all these guys wait. I didn’t want to do that. I have no intentions of ever going back to light heavyweight.”

UFC president Dana White says Jones can debut at heavyweight with a title shot, which would likely be the winner of current division titleholder Stipe Miocic rematching Francis Ngannou, date unknown. 

“I’ll be ready for either of them,” he said. “Both fights are extremely challenging. Stipe, he’s the greatest heavyweight of all time. He has all the stats and records to prove that. And then Francis is just a freak when it comes to his knockout power, and he’s improving constantly. Both fights are gigantic challenges, but that’s what I’m here for in this stage of my career: to go big and see what I’ve got.”

Jones can envision what it will be like to become UFC heavyweight champion.

“It’ll feel amazing,” he said. “Somewhere along the line, getting that light heavyweight championship wrapped around my waist, the excitement and other emotions it should have evoked, kind of went away. It was just another day at the office. It was what we always do. But I haven’t won that heavyweight championship yet. To do that for my family, and do that for my team, and all the people that have invested in me over the years, it’ll be something new for all of us.”

“I would love to win the heavyweight championship, defend it two or three times against the top heavyweights out there, and then I’d really like to transition into humanitarian work.