Jon Jones Brutally Snubs Reporter At UFC 214 Press Conference
Former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones will finally return from a one-year suspension and a host of other outside-the-cage problems when he meets current champion and rival Daniel Cormier in the main event of Saturday’s (July 29, 2017) UFC 214 from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
The two bitter rivals continued a verbal battle that has lasted more than three years at today’s UFC 214 pre-fight press conference, and not surprisingly, things got heated quickly.
But it may not have been how you expected it to go down. Part of that was exacerbated by the fact that Jones , when asked if he cared about being the so-called “bad guy,” any longer, told MMA Junkie’s John Morgan he had stopped caring:
“Yeah, I feel like I’m at a pretty good place in my life with who I am, and I’ve just kind of learned not to give a fuck, and it feels great.”
An interesting choice of words, as it could certainly be suggested that not giving a you-know-what was what got Jones into all of the trouble that has severely hampered his otherwise decorated fighting career for the past three years.
Indeed Jones’ entire UFC run has been littered with massive successes held back by only head-scratching mishaps involving drugs and other poor decisions. Now that he has turned 30, Jones was asked by MMA Fighting’s Luke Thomas how he viewed his 20s:
“You’re 30 now, so I’m wondering as you turned 30, I guess on the 19th of July, what would you say about your 20s? Was it good, was it bad, was it somewhere in between, how would you look back on that decade?”
Jones appeared to not like that question whatsoever, telling Thomas he did not like him and would therefore deny answering his question:
“I don’t really like you, Luke, so I’m not going to answer your question.”
There’s no clear explanation of what past discord Jones and Thomas may have had with one another, but it was clearly enough, at least in Jones’ mind, to publicly call out a man who is widely respected as one of the best and most thorough journalists in the MMA industry.
We’ll reserve our own judgements for now, however, as once again, the details of why Jones declined are uncertain. Depending on just what they are, Jones, who probably should be trying to repair his extremely tarnished image, has instead taken the not-so-tactful stance of “not giving a f***,” and that seemed to come off on a reporter just trying to gain a point of view today. The fans in California seemed to side with Jones, cheering when he snubbed Thomas, but they were probably there to see some drama unfold in the first place.
What was your opinion of the press conference scene? Did Thomas somehow deserve to be brushed aside, or is Jones continuing on the same path despite claiming to be a changed man for his latest comeback?
