Jon Jones Makes Losers Of Everyone

Jon Jones has defeated everything except rules in his career. His lone loss, inside the cage came when he destroyed Matt Hamill with illegal elbows and he’s lost the UFC light heavyweight title on three separate occasions due to failed drug tests and trouble with the law.

On Wednesday night, Jones was once again stripped of the light heavyweight belt for failing his third drug test in four fights. The failure could mark the end of what should have been the greatest mixed martial arts career of all-time. Instead, it’s just another reminder of how much Jon Jones has destroyed everything in his path.

Daniel Cormier gets the light heavyweight title back. There were questions surrounding the legitimacy of his first reign following a decision loss to Jones. There are no questions surrounding this reign. Not because there’s no “Jon Jones will be back soon” cloud hanging over his head. But because we all watched Jones empathetically stop Cormier with a head kick and strikes. Cormier may very well go down as the second greatest light heavyweight of all-time, but we’re never going to forget the two losses to Jones. Failed drug tests or not, the fights still happened and we still know that Jones is the better fighter.

The light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions no longer have that big fish. Jones being around meant a rematch with Alexander Gustafsson and potential super fights with Stipe Miocic and Cain Velasquez. Plus, the lure of the Brock Lesnar fight. All four of those fights are gone. Cormier and Gustafsson is a fine rematch, but their first bout did 250,000 and the rematch is unlikely to do much better. Cormier-Miocic isn’t drawing and Cormier-Velasquez isn’t happening. And Brock Lesnar is definitely off the table now.

While both divisions lack depth, having a dominant champion on top always gives the allure that something special can happen. Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre fought weak competition during their run, but we tuned in because we either wanted to see greatness or we wanted to see greatness fall. The same for Ronda Rousey. That would have been the appeal of Jones against anybody. That appeal is gone with Cormier on top.

Even though Cormier could argue that he’s undefeated, no one views him as such. No one looks at Cormier and says, “I’m witnessing something special” thanks in large part to the two losses to Jones.

For the UFC, their bottom line is about to take a huge hit. Jones was an established superstar who would do at least 400,000 buys against any opponent. Now, they’re left with Conor McGregor and Georges St-Pierre. McGregor is unlikely to fight this year and St-Pierre may only be around for one fight. Should GSP lose to Michael Bisping and head back into retirement, the UFC could struggle to crack 300,000 buys with any headliner not named McGregor.

Given that McGregor will only fight three times a year at most, the company is looking at at least nine pay-per-view events with limited interested and appeal.

Obviously, other stars can emerge, but the UFC’s track record in building stars doesn’t inspire much confidence. Even if a guy like Max Holloway turns into a superstar, the UFC will always have one less than they should with Jones on the sideline.

WME purchased the company for billions, thinking they were getting “the fastest growing sport in the world” and a handful of superstars to build around. Now, their hopes are tied to an Irishman who could retire off boxing money and, should he defeated McGregor in a third fight, Nate Diaz.

Then there is us, the fans. For some reason, despite being a terrible human being, the vast majority of us rooted for the Jon Jones comeback story. We wanted to see him get his life together and be great. We loved that he finally embraced the fact that he’s a dick. We also just thought Daniel Cormier was a bit corny. That’s now gone.

We lost the most talented fighter to ever step foot in the cage and left wondering if it’s worth getting invested anymore.

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