Greg Jackson gives his support to Jon Jones
Greg Jackson, coach for Jon “Bones” Jones, has formally pledged his support for the UFC Light-Heavyweight Champion, who was recently arrested for DUI after crashing his Bentley into a utility pole in Binghamton, New York, in the early-morning hours of May 19.
Jones had the support of the UFC behind him including CEO Dana White, Malki Kawa (his manager) and one-time rival Rashad Evans. In spite of that there has been a degree of backlash against Jones, stemming from what could be labeled as hypocrisy. Jones once boasted that he would never be arrested for “something like DUI.”
Jackson spoke up for Jones on HDNet’s InsideMMA: “Well, I think that he’s trying to do the right thing here, and make sure that, you know, I’m gonna do the plea bargain thing and make sure that I don’t get into this situation, ever again. As long as you make a mistake and learn from it, I hope people give him a lot of lattitude, because people make mistakes, and as long as he’s trying to take those positive steps and do the right thing, I think we should all respect that and support him.”
In a separate interview, Jackson responded to Rick Strom of TYT Sports on the subject of MMA fans accusing Jones of putting up a “clean-cut image” as an act. Jackson laughed and replied: “You can’t put his fighting down so if you have to find something to put down, I guess his image would be the thing to do. Jon is one of the nicest, sweetest guys I’ve ever met. He’s an awesome guy, an awesome human being. He takes care of me and the whole coaching staff here, really well. I don’t know where they’re getting that, so the only thing I can think is this: He’s rolling through fighters, he’s so young and so talented and they can’t insult him there so they just go after his character.”
Is this simply character-assassination, as Jackson states, or is the criticism of Jones a legitimate observation based on observed behavior?
