Dana White: Super disappointed over Jon Jones incident
UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones is in Las Vegas to meet with UFC president Dana White. The issue on the table is Jones’ weekend arrest after crashing his Bentley into a telephone pole early Saturday morning and its implications for the 24 year-old fighter.
Most importantly, Dana White needs to determine if this was a one-time error, or is it the first sign in what could be a pattern of bad behavior on the part of Jones. White has a lot invested in Jones as the UFC sponsored his last fight with Rashad Evans. White told the Boston Herald, today, that he is, “super disappointed and bummed out”, about the incident.
White went on, to say: “It’s really sitting down and figuring out what is it you want to do. You’re 24 years old, you could be a force in this sport for the next 10 years and go down as the greatest ever – beat everybody, do all this stuff, be the first guy to break through and get a Nike deal, the first guy to get Gatorade and all these other things. Do you want to be that guy or do you want to go the other way? You can go the other way, too, and you can be the total bad guy, make a few million here or there and then go tell everybody to go, ‘(Expletive) off.’ It’s no different whether it’s the UFC, boxing, the NBA, the NFL – it’s the guys who really focus and get their (stuff) together no matter how old you are, whether you’re 21 or 31. That’s what we’ve got to figure out where Jones is at and what he wants to do. The road is littered with talented guys who didn’t live up to their potential.”
Jones issued an apology on his Facebook page yesterday, but has since taken it down. Jones could be facing up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine if he is found guilty of DUI. He is scheduled to appear in court in Binghamton, New York, on May 29 for arraignment.